


Closure

by Daffodil76



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dark Kylo Ren, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Force Visions, Galactic politics, Gray Jedi Kylo Ren, Gray Jedi Rey (Star Wars), Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo Ren Redemption, Not a dark Reylo, One non-con instant as referenced in summary, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Trailer, You are not alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2020-11-23 13:59:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 24
Words: 140,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20893238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daffodil76/pseuds/Daffodil76
Summary: “I said don’t touch me!” he yells and shoves his hand between her thighs, fingering her brutally through her trousers.“There!” he sneers. “How does it feel to be groped by your enemy without your consent?”She throws a punch at his face but he catches her wrist in time and squeezes so hard she cries out. He advances on her, pressing her arm against her body, and slams her to the ground. She lands hard on her back.“What is wrong with you?!” Rey shouts, scrambling to her feet.“Nothing I want to discuss with you, scavenger,” he snarls and turns away.“You don’t get to walk away like that! You will tell me what’s going on! Something bad has happened to you. I've sensed it through the bond since you arrived!”“Oh, you can feel it too?” he hisses, turning back slowly and bringing his face so close to her she jerks away. “Have a good look, then.”His eyes flash yellow.Rey screams.------One year after Crait, Kylo Ren unexpectedly offers to open peace talks with the Resistance. But when they meet, nothing goes the way Rey thinks. Visibly tormented, Kylo shuns and ignores her. She could just let it go but she finds herself still holding on to the monster.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you are in the mood for a multi-chapter treat with elements of TROS trailers before the actual film hits the silver screen, you’re in the right place. There is passion here but there is also peace, darkness looms on the horizon, and our favourite One True Pairing pain train departs!  
Edit 21/12/19: this is now officially AU and TROS revised.

The bond has been silent since Crait. It isn’t gone; it is humming under her skin, always at the back of her mind. Or maybe it’s _him_, remaining there – at the back of her mind – because she invariably finds herself thinking of him when she is alone and unoccupied.

He is her failure, or her biggest failure, because she has failed in many other things. Failed to make her parents love her enough to keep her. Failed to convince the last Jedi to train her. Failed to decipher the contents of most of the books she stole from him. Failed to tell everyone, even Leia, the whole truth about what happened on the _Supremacy_. She did tell them Kylo Ren killed Snoke, but of course the Resistance interpreted that as a power grab.

Maybe it was just that?

Rey can’t tell anymore. She recalls the events in the throne room with a vague sense of shame. It’s not that she regrets not taking his hand; she was sure then, as she is now, that turning him down was the right thing to do. But perhaps she should have talked to him some more before she reached for the lightsaber? Perhaps she could have negotiated, argued for a compromise? She has no idea what that compromise could be, but it was worth at least trying to discuss it, after all the risk she took flying to the _Supremacy _in the first place. And perhaps she shouldn’t have left him unconscious on a burning ship?

Above all, she should never have gone in there with the stupid intention of taking him back to the Resistance. It was never an option, just like her joining him at the helm of the First Order wasn’t. He didn’t want any of it and he was right – he would have no place among them, he would go mad here on their base on Espirion, spending his days running after supplies or accompanying his mother to difficult talks with potential allies.

Not to mention that the Resistance would probably never accept him. At best, everyone would shun him and he would feel alienated; this would put Leia in a very uncomfortable situation and might even jeopardise her leadership. At worst, they would get aggressive with him. One way or another, by now he would be sick of it. He would either steal a ship and escape – maybe even go back to the Order? – or respond with violence, and likely kill everyone or die at their hands.

So, then, it was simply not meant to be.

And yet, Rey regrets. The memory of his sorrowful eyes as he knelt before her in the Crait base haunts her, because it’s a violent image. Why kneel? Why suddenly such despair, his earlier fury all gone? She could hate him, or at least forget him more easily, if her last glimpse of him was that of a murderous, enraged madman. But instead, that quiet sorrow. It still burns her. She has not healed from that sight.

Almost a year later, the Resistance has more people, more ships, secret allies, and sponsors who provide funds and supplies. But it’s a very long way from there to defeating the First Order, with its giant army and its strongholds spanning the whole galaxy.

The First Order, in contrast, has gone a bit quiet. The Resistance is not being actively pursued; there are no bounties on their heads, not even on Leia’s. They have been changing bases every two months or so, and in all this time they haven’t been ambushed even once. In the First Order’s official communications the Resistance isn’t even mentioned anymore, as if they were being ignored on purpose.

Also, they receive mixed messages about the First Order’s dealings. On the one hand, more and more worlds seem to fall under the Order’s dominion. On the other hand, however, no reports of violent confrontations reach the Resistance, no genocidal attacks such as the Hosnian cataclysm are carried out, and no rumours of new superweapons circulate. The First Order maintains a firm control over large chunks of the galaxy, but doesn’t commit any new atrocities.

Is Kylo Ren trying to make up for his predecessor’s reckless cruelty? Or is Rey’s information simply incomplete? General Organa doesn’t give many speeches these days, which might mean that nothing too bad is going on, but no major positive change has been reported, either. In any case, the Resistance’s official goal remains to rid the galaxy of the First Order, and to bring back freedom and peace. The troops’ enthusiasm hasn’t declined, but these are largely new troops – the _Falcon_ left Crait with thirty people on board only, and since then new fighters have joined, unscathed by past trauma, with fresh hopes and an appetite to fight. Their energy is being channeled into various missions to obtain supplies or equipment, and to spy, albeit without engaging, on First Order outposts and operatives. They are also busy with endless maintenance operations and successive moves from one place of hiding to another. The General and Poe, all the while, fly around the galaxy to secret negotiations.

Rey trains. There are two Jedi books she did manage to read, and one of them contained exhaustive information on lightsaber fighting techniques. She rebuilt Anakin Skywalker’s saber; the crystal got cracked when she and Ben fought for it, but the bigger piece was still good enough to create a new blade. She has nobody to spar with but she can practice the forms. She meditates. She reads about the Force and the history of the Jedi and the Sith. She practices moving and controlling objects. And she learns a few new tricks.

But she’s starting to run out of ideas. Without a teacher, it is tough.

On such occasions, she thinks of him. She rejected his first offer – to be his student – and she doesn’t regret that, either, but she wouldn’t be above asking him a few questions. There will surely be opportunities. Eventually, they’ll meet again, in person or via the bond. How and when exactly, she is not sure, she just hopes it won’t be on a battlefield. The Force must have its reasons to keep their bond quiet for the time being. Maybe it’s giving them time to digest everything that has happened, so that they can forget their anger and pride. Maybe they will actually be able to talk to each other next time they meet. But one year has passed; it is a long time.

Rey is not unhappy, though, far from it. She has a purpose, although she would prefer her purpose not to be war. She has friends, more than she could ever imagine, although she can’t discuss any issues related to the Force with them. Most people on the base regard her with reverence, which doesn’t facilitate close relationships. She has shelter, food, her own bed, and it is a million times better, more meaningful and more joyful than her life back on Jakku.

And yet she feels restless and lonely. If she were asked whether she found the belonging she was looking for – the belonging which, after Crait, she hoped to finally have found with the Resistance – she wouldn’t be able to reply with certainty.

* * *

And then one day Kylo Ren sends a message to General Organa asking to talk, and they talk via holocomm for more than an hour, alone. Of that long conversation, Leia doesn’t reveal almost anything to her troops, apart from the big news that Ren is offering to open peace talks between their two organizations.

It seems that Rey is the only person truly happy to hear that. The others seem shocked, incredulous, and – disappointed? Don’t they want the war to end, like she does? She can fight, she has been practicing with that in mind, but she doesn’t really want to. Surely nobody normal wants to? This is not the life she used to dream of for herself, and she would definitely prefer not to have to fight _him _ever again. If Ben and Leia could come to an agreement, if things could improve in the galaxy, perhaps everyone could finally have a semblance of a normal life. Perhaps Rey could then find more learning material about the Force, travel the galaxy, go where she wanted and see for herself how she wanted to live. She could have a real choice. A life of her own.

As a survivor, Rey knows there is always a middle ground, but most of her comrades in arms are much less willing to compromise. The only one who seems to share Rey’s view is Leia: the politician, the diplomat. Perhaps also the mother who longs to be reconciled with her long-estranged son? Rey isn’t sure as she and Leia never talk of Ben anymore these days.

While she wants freedom and peace for the galaxy just like everyone else, Rey believes there might be different paths leading to it, some of them not so straightforward, and it might take time. Mostly, to her, peace with the First Order would mean she would never have to see her friends die in battle. Now that she has found some people to care for, she can’t lose them. Sacrificing precious lives in heroic stunts is not her way. She just wants to keep her friends safe.

To keep _everyone _safe.

* * *

“It’s a trap,” Poe affirms, leaning with his hands on the table and eyeing Leia earnestly. She’s standing opposite him, on the other side of the table, looking at the holomap of the galaxy hovering above it. It’s their command centre and there are more than one hundred people here, mostly squeezed behind Poe. They’re looking at Pasaana, a desert planet at the edge of the galaxy that Kylo Ren suggested as a possible venue for the peace negotiations. It is quite far away from their current base on Espirion, and very few of them have ever been on Pasaana. Leia hasn’t, and neither has Poe.

“He’s trying to flush us out of hiding, get us alone on some isolated, remote world we don’t know,” Poe argues. “Why not pick a central location, in the Core? Why be so secretive about it? For some reason he doesn’t want anyone else to know. Because he means to kill us off quietly!”

Leia sighs.

“Your concerns are noted, Commander Dameron,” she says. “But unfounded. It is much better if the result of our negotiations is communicated publicly only once they’re concluded. Otherwise there would be too much controversy around them, unnecessary holonet speculation, and pressure on both sides from various interest groups. He’s right to suggest a discreet location. And I don’t think he’s leading us into a trap. If he wanted to ambush us, he’d have done it already.”

“He’d have to know where we are!” Commander D’acy interjects, frowning.

“He knows where we are,” Leia says calmly and doesn’t flinch as the room explodes in shouting.

“You told him where our base is?” Poe raises his voice, clearly taken aback. “Why would you do that? Why would you tell that monster our location?”

“Don’t be stupid, Poe!” Leia snaps. “Of course I didn’t tell him. I asked him what to tell my troops if they doubted his sincerity, as you immediately did. Then he said he knew we were on Espirion, and on Hoth before that, and if he wanted us dead, he’d have sent a star destroyer over here long ago.”

There is silence in the room as everyone looks at one another in shock. Rey can feel her face get hot; is she somehow responsible for this? Is it the bond, activating without her noticing, for example at night, which let Ben somehow figure out their location? Perhaps the bond has evolved and he can see her surroundings now?

“If he knows that and doesn’t care to attack, he must think we’re not a real threat,” Poe says slowly. “So why bother with peace talks?”

“Maybe he needs allies?” Leia suggests.

“And he picks us? A band of a few hundred fighters with a few hundred ships, hiding in abandoned bases on obscure worlds?” Finn snorts. “He must be in desperate need of allies! Against whom, anyway?”

“Not all alliances are forged for military reasons. Peace with us has a political value, much higher than the strategic or economic importance of our troops or equipment,” Leia points out patiently. “We represent the Republic to the rest of the galaxy.”

“Why would he care about that? To improve the image of the First Order? What for?” Commander D’acy asks.

Leia sighs again.

“There has been a coup against him within the Order,” she admits. “Led by General Hux. Hux has been executed, and so have been the other dissenters. Apparently they were hardcore Snoke supporters, while the current high-command, loyal to Kylo Ren, supports his intention to end the war.”

There is another series of shocked gasps and murmurs. Finn and Rose exchange triumphant looks at the news of Hux’s demise, and for some reason it makes Rey uneasy. She wonders briefly whether they would react similarly if Ben’s death were to be announced. Perhaps they’d display even more enthusiasm.

“Maybe he has a new project in mind,” Rey says and everyone turns to her. On occasions like these, she never stands in the front row, by the table, but rather at the back of the room.

“What do you mean?” Finn asks and she shifts uneasily. Only Leia knows that one year ago, on the _Supremacy_, Ben already wanted to build a ‘new order’ – even if Rey failed to share the information that he offered to build it with her.

“It sounds like he is trying to change something,” she explains. “Maybe he’s preparing a transformation of the First Order?”

“In that case, the peace with us would definitely represent a reputational advantage,” Leia says. “And yes, he did say he was changing things. But it won’t be easy for him to meet us halfway. We have bottom lines that the First Order never accepted. A decent democratic representation at galactic level. No hostile takeovers of worlds. No unlawful exploitation of resources. No superweapons. And so on. So we’ll see.”

“I thought our aim was the destruction of the First Order, not a deal with them,” Poe utters slowly, looking at her.

“The First Order is millions of people,” Leia replies. “What would you do with all of them? Imprison them? Kill them? Who would judge and sentence them, now that the Republic and its institutions are gone? We can negotiate about war criminals, but we will need to work with the rest of those people. Hux is gone. The biggest fanatics are gone. This is good for us.”

“Kylo Ren is a war criminal himself,” Poe argues hotly. “We cannot accept any deal that would keep him in a position of power.”

“Do you actually want peace at all?” Rey blurts out and most people look shocked to hear their Jedi speak in such a way. What, do they expect her to shake her lightsaber at every mention of the First Order? “Are you even interested in any negotiation, or it's your deal or nothing?”

“It’s our deal or nothing,” Poe confirms. “And our deal is to end everything the First Order stands for, even if we might not need to kill all the people that are part of it. Full stop.”

“I hear you all,” Leia cuts them off. “And I also need to take into account the views of those who offered us supplies and protection while we were in hiding, all along believing that we will continue to uphold the ideals of the Republic. But he just wants to _talk_. We aren’t committing to anything. We can discuss different options for galactic government and power structure. We can try to be open-minded and at least hear what they have to say. Do you agree? Or are we going to refuse point blank in advance because the only way we can meet with them is in battle?”

Poe looks like he’s inclined to agree with the latter option, jump into his X-wing and go blow something up, but this time he stays silent. Rey wonders if everyone in the room suspects Leia’s views might be influenced by the fact Kylo Ren is her son. Nothing in the way she speaks, however, betrays that kind of bias. She’s not showing any sentimentality; she’s firm, rational and pragmatic. Rey admires that, but it’s not her way. She could not do that, she couldn’t even pretend to be so impartial and levelheaded if her family was involved. But then again, Leia is a politician. She has a political mindset and she can hide her emotions behind a professional façade.

That’s not Rey’s way, either.

“Peace doesn’t have to be reached by one side defeating the other,” Leia says, addressing the whole room. “And maybe it even shouldn’t be. That’s what the Rebellion did to the Empire, and then the First Order rose from the Empire’s ashes. New hatred and resentment sprang from the humiliation of those who had lost. Let’s not make the same mistake again. Perhaps nobody needs to lose and nobody needs to die anymore. In the end,” she speaks directly to Poe now, “the most important thing is preserving lives. We don’t have any more of those to spare.”

This is all true. It sounds solid enough, for now. But even Rey, though she agrees with Leia in principle, and doesn’t hate Kylo Ren quite as much as everyone else here, finds the General too easily pacified. Or rather, she finds this shift of Leia’s perspective a tad too quick. Suspiciously quick.

Also, she senses a wave of deep unease emanating from Leia. The General’s mind is a strange turmoil in the Force, her light aura somewhat faded, her confidence and her certainty of purpose shaken, even though her voice remains as steady as usual.

_What are you not telling us, Leia? _

Before she can stop herself, Rey brushes against Leia’s mind – very lightly, almost imperceptibly, and withdraws rapidly as the General’s eyes dart to her. Leia frowns. But Rey is not really ashamed to have been caught.

Instead, she recoils in shock from the sheer terror she finds in the older woman’s mind.

* * *

Two weeks later on Pasaana, when the hatch of the black Upsilon-class shuttle hisses open, Rey, standing with Leia and Poe at the bottom of the ramp, inhales sharply. She doesn’t know what to expect. Not any open hostility, in any case, given the peaceful character of the meeting, though her lightsaber remains clipped to her belt just in case. Kylo Ren didn’t say anything about weapons; he only agreed with Leia that each side could come accompanied by a delegation of twenty people. For the Resistance, the group includes, among others, Poe, Finn, Rose, and D’acy.

Ben appears at the top of the ramp, and he’s not alone. A tall warrior stands behind him, clad in black armour from head to heels. Their face is masked, but their silhouette, though almost as tall as Kylo’s, appears to be female. For a moment, for a reason she doesn’t want to analyse, Rey’s heart twitches painfully. But it looks like the person is Kylo’s bodyguard rather than a co-negotiator. Behind her, two Praetorian guards emerge, and further still, several high-ranking Order officers, men and women. A row of stormtroopers follows.

Ben descends the ramp and Rey finds herself breathless. She drinks him in; the same look, the same hair, similar black clothes. His tunic and cape look a bit more intricate now that he’s the Supreme Leader. The wound on his face, _her _wound, has healed; the scar is thin and much less visible. He’s as pale as he used to be, he still has dark circles under his eyes, but they’re not as pronounced as the last time she saw him, and he doesn’t look bruised and battered anymore. He just appears not to sleep very well.

He stops in front of them, his eyes sliding over Poe and Rey quickly and settling on Leia.

“Mother,” he says rather stiffly, making a slight bow. The General is silent and Rey doesn’t need to look at her to feel her emotion. A clever politician that she is, Leia prefers not to speak at all if she can’t master her expression fully.

“Shall we?” Ben suggests, gesturing towards the space behind Leia. In the middle of the desert, but in close proximity to the only city on Pasaana, stands a concrete structure. There are many such structures on this world, built by the Aki-Aki as shelters for travelers caught in sand storms when traversing the vast deserts. This particular shelter has been especially prepared as living quarters for the First Order and the Resistance delegations, at Kylo Ren’s request. In front of it, a large bright red negotiation tent is flapping in the wind.

The Aki-Aki are ancient, Force-sensitive beings, wise, slow, and discreet. They have kept their neutrality throughout the conflicts that have torn the galaxy in the last decades. Allegiant neither to the Empire, nor to the Rebellion, neither to the First Order, nor to the Resistance, they have nevertheless been willing to provide a safe neutral ground for the two sides to meet on. Other than that, they won't disturb. They’ll be observing from the distance.

Leia nods and turns around to walk towards the tent beside Kylo Ren. They leave Poe and Rey behind.

It takes Rey a moment to process what has just happened.

Ben didn’t look upset, pained, angry, or regretful. He didn't look anything at all. He glanced at her in the same way as he did at Poe – without any particular face expression, and without any interest. His eyes didn’t linger on her for a second too long. He didn’t acknowledge her in any way. It’s as if she were nothing –

– But it hit her like a compressed mass of hot air the moment he appeared at the top of that ramp: terrible pain rolling off him and seeping in through the bond. The bond, which hums and buzzes in her ears now, penetrating through his and her mental barriers, through this double wall they’ve erected between them. The bond infuses Rey’s awareness with a sense of deep suffering; it carries a mute scream, worse than in the Starkiller forest, worse than when Ben told her about Luke’s betrayal, worse than in the throne room, worse than when she was closing the _Falcon_’s door in his face. She can smell a scared animal, a desperate being in the clutches of fear. His emotions are strikingly similar to what Rey felt in Leia’s mind two weeks ago, but much stronger.

_What is going on, Ben?_

He tries to snap the connection and shut his mind to her, but they’re too close for that now. It can’t be helped. As Rey walks behind him in silence, the waves of darkness emanating from him hit her time and again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a few notes: I’m not sure yet if this whole story will be in Rey’s POV but for the time being, I find it flows better like this. In my other stories (which are Kylo/OFC) I tend to use Kylo’s POV more often than not. 
> 
> For the scene setting, I took some inspiration from the trailer and the photos released by the Vanity Fair, and added some imagination - in reality, we know next to nothing yet about Pasaana or the Aki-Aki! 
> 
> If you felt disappointed that an important character such as Hux is killed off stage quietly: the circumstances of his death will actually play an important part later in the story. I love writing Hux… but in this story, we have to say goodbye to him.
> 
> So, where are those yellow eyes? Wait for it - they’re coming!
> 
> Let me know how you liked it so far and thank you for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, I’m really happy about the reception this story has got so far - thank you all so much. It definitely helps me write faster and better, so please keep it up!

Ben and Leia spend an hour alone in the red tent. Then he calls in some of his officers – not the mysterious warrior in black, though – while Leia asks Poe and D’Acy to join her. Two more hours pass, during which cold drinks and refreshments are served to them.

If a deal is to be struck and a military and political agreement is to be signed, Rey doesn’t really expect to be a key member of the negotiating and drafting team. Most probably, she only earned her place in Leia’s delegation because of her status as the Resistance’s Jedi: a safety guarantee and a check on Kylo Ren. And perhaps also a little bit because of her history with him. It’s completely normal, then, that she’s not invited to all the meetings. Were it not for his distant behavior, the exclusion from that first gathering wouldn’t worry or surprise her in the slightest – but now, given the circumstances, it stings a bit that neither Leia nor Ben asked for her presence, because it seems to be a deliberate omission.

Ben’s indifference hurts. Rey didn’t expect any apologies, and certainly not a renewal of his offer to join him, but she assumed he still cared – because she did. Now it looks like he doesn’t, and something terrible seems to be on his mind, to which Leia might be privy, but Rey is not. On top of that, when Poe and D’Acy finally leave the tent and join the rest of the Resistance’s delegation in the mess hall of the main building for lunch, they are rather tight-lipped.

“It’s just the beginning,” Poe says curtly. “Not much to report yet. We will ask more of you to attend in the next days.”

“That’s all?” Rey asks, disappointed.

“For now,” D’Acy replies in a conciliatory manner.

“But is there any common ground for understanding or not? What does he want?”

“For the time being, we have been talking about what has happened in the Order,” Poe explains reluctantly. “What the situation was after Snoke’s death and what it is now. Ren did share a lot of information…”

“He definitely showed some good will,” D’Acy confirms.

“What was he like?” Rose prompts.

“Very matter-of-fact. Not friendly, but not unfriendly. Distant and rather standoffish, but cooperative. There is a great tension between him and Leia. It’s emotional, almost painful, but it doesn’t feel hostile.”

“Well, I still feel like punching him,” Poe shrugs. “I don’t trust him one bit. But he did tell us so many things we didn’t even ask for, for example about Snoke’s dealings with criminal gangs, or about the in-fighting within the Order that led to the recent coup. And he didn’t ask many questions himself, about our allies or the state of our army.”

Maybe he doesn’t ask because he knows all that already, Rey thinks. He knew about their bases. Does he have spies following them? Perhaps some of the so-called new allies of the Resistance are in reality Kylo Ren’s associates?

“And who is the warrior in black?” Rose asks, and Rey loves her for that, because she wouldn’t dare to ask herself. “Is she one of the Knights of Ren?”

“I don’t think so,” Poe says, though he doesn’t sound very certain. “Ren mentioned the Knights were on various missions around the galaxy but that was all he said about them. Anyway, where’s Finn?” he changes the subject.

“He’s there,” Rose points to the other corner of the mess hall. This room is definitely too big for forty people, as if designed on purpose to enable the two delegations to keep distance from each other, but also to mix and mingle if they choose to do so. In that other corner, the “First Order corner” as Leia’s people call it already, sits Finn, surrounded by ten figures in white armour, with their helmets off.

“He’s eating with the troopers,” Rose explains, beaming. “He actually knew two of them personally, from the old times, and they started talking immediately.”

It can’t be an accident. Among millions of stormtroopers in the First Order, Ben couldn’t just have picked randomly two people that Finn happened to know. Ben must have made inquiries and done that on purpose. But why? He definitely isn’t in the business of pleasing Finn or anyone else here for the sake of it. For some reason, however, just like when he chose to share information about the Order, he is showing good will. Is it sincere, or is it just part of a strategy to manipulate them into an agreement they wouldn’t accept otherwise? Or worse, is he trying to get Finn to reveal some information about the Resistance? Rey has no idea. But there must be a reason; last time they met, on the Starkiller base, Ben called Finn a traitor and almost killed him.

Regardless, it must be so good to see old friends and to hear how they are. It must be such a relief for Finn to know that, if this negotiation is successful, he will never have to draw a weapon on any of them.

“I’m glad for Finn,” Rey says. “It’s a very nice surprise.”

“Right?!” Rose exclaims. “He was really happy to see them! In the end, it’s like Leia said; the Order is millions of people, and not all of them are bad.”

* * *

As the rest of the Resistance’s delegation join them at the table, the information from the meeting needs to be repeated, and then the conversation swerves towards other subjects: the planet, the Aki-Aki, the hot weather. Later in the afternoon, as she unpacks her meagre belongings in the room she has been allocated, Rey catches a glimpse of Leia and Ben through the window. They are leaving the tent only now. They must have eaten there together. Ben accompanies his mother to the entrance of the shelter and lingers for a few seconds, talking to her, then turns back and walks towards his Upsilon-class shuttle. Leia disappears in the doorway.

It didn’t look like they were discussing any personal matters; they both wore very business-like facial expressions. But how can they _not_ discuss personal matters? How can they not talk about Luke, about Han, about what happened on Crait, about the years of their separation and the absurdity of being on two sides of a war, about a million grievances, big and small, that they must have against each other? How can they stay so cool and impassive? And what is it that they _do _talk about for so long, already on the first day? It can’t be just the future of the galaxy. There must be something else, a secret, and Rey becomes even more certain of it when she leaves her room to deliberately walk into Leia in the corridor. A second before Leia notices her and schools her face into a neutral mask, she looks so miserable, weary, and worried, that Rey forgets her curiosity and actually stops to ask the General if she’s all right.

But Leia doesn’t stop. She nods to Rey as she passes by, enters her room and closes the door softly behind her.

* * *

After an early dinner, during which Finn babbles excitedly about his trooper friends, Rey walks out of the building and wanders around. It’s still hot, but getting cooler; she doesn’t find it unpleasant, she feels at ease on this desert world, but there aren’t many other people walking around.

She heads towards Ben’s black shuttle, parked in the middle of the desert. The troopers are busy around it; perhaps they’re taking more belongings to the living quarters in the shelter. How many days will these negotiations last, anyway? How long are they expected to be here? A week, two weeks? Rey walks all the way around the shuttle and peers inside curiously; it looks brand new, it’s hi-tech, and the scavenger in her itches to examine the outside and the inside of it with her own hands.

Behind the shuttle, the desert is peppered with reddish rocks. The sandy plain gradually changes into a more hilly terrain and a narrow canyon opens. It looks to be getting broader and deeper further in the distance. The rocky walls rising on its both sides cast a shadow onto the canyon’s bottom, which will allow for a nice morning walk there. Rey imagines the pinkish sky at dawn and the pleasant coolness, like on Jakku, before the sun started scorching mercilessly at around ten o’clock in the morning.

Just in that moment Ben emerges from around the shuttle and spots her. He says something to the officer walking with him, who turns back, while Ben continues in the direction of the rocks.

“Stop doing this,” he says, barely glancing at her as he passes by without slowing down.

“Doing what?” Rey asks, and he turns to her, an impatient snarl on his face. He looks flustered, but it’s not because of her. He’s simply hot; he has already shed his cape and belt, and his outer tunic is open, revealing a black top underneath. His face glistens with sweat.

“Watching me. Trying to figure things out. Brushing against my mind.”

“I wouldn’t if you just talked to me –”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” he cuts her off. “And I don’t see why it should surprise you.”

“It’s true, I am surprised. You offer me the galaxy, and the next time we meet you're not even interested in having a conversation?”

He looks slightly taken aback at her directness, at how soon this conversation has touched upon the most delicate subject that can be, but he recovers quickly and the snarl on his face deepens.

“You refused the galaxy,” he shoots back. “And you weren’t inclined to talk back then, as far as I remember.”

“Oh, is this what it is about?” Rey snaps. “Because I dared to _refuse _you, now you’ll be punishing me? A year has passed. An adult should be able to get over it after that long. So why are you being so hostile?”

“I’m not hostile,” he pulls impatiently at his collar, looking more and more uncomfortable and annoyed; she hardly knows if it’s the heat or the conversation with her. “Your attention is simply unwanted. Am I not making myself clear?”

“I just want to _talk_,” Rey insists. “It’s not so traumatic to exchange a few words, is it?”

“About what?”

“About everything, Ben. About things people who are not enemies talk about. Like the things I talk about with them,” she points towards Poe and Finn, standing together in the distance, in front of the red tent.

“Oh, like ‘friends’”? he sneers.

“What’s so ridiculous about the idea of friends?”

“How would I know? I don’t have any.”

“I also didn’t have any, until a year ago. Now I do, and I know how good it feels when someone asks you how you are. So, I’m asking. How are you?”

“No, it doesn’t feel good at all when you ask,” he replies, turns away from her and resumes his walk.

“Why did you really come here, Ben?” Rey shouts after him. “Why want peace with the Resistance, after all this time? Why even bother with us?”

At that, he stops. He stands still for a moment, his black mane moving slightly in the wind that has picked up as the sunset approaches.

“I wanted closure,” he says finally over his shoulder. “I want this over with so that I can deal with more important things and not worry that one of your lot plants a bomb somewhere, or stirs trouble on a world I try to govern, or destroys a ship with thousands of my people on it just to pull a stupid stunt. I want to end this once and for all so that we all stop playing games of ten-year-olds.”

“Or maybe you want to put up a show, for the whole galaxy to see how benevolent you are and how the First Order has changed,” Rey blurts out. This is not what she really thinks; this is closer to what Poe thinks, but at this point she will say anything just to make Ben talk, even if she has no idea what she wants to get out of him.

“Or maybe to show the galaxy it has no use for the Resistance,” he spits, finally turning around and looking at her with undisguised contempt. “You wanted to be the good guys while we are the bad guys? Well, now we will be those who want peace and who compromise. And you – you will be irrelevant. In reality, you have already been that for a long time.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t say that to Leia when you contacted her? I’m not sure she’d be so willing to indulge you and come here!”

Ben laughs, but it’s a mirthless, tortured laugh of someone so tired and annoyed he could explode at any moment.

“And what if I did?” he hisses. “What if this _is_ what I said to her? Would she refuse to negotiate just so she could keep her role as a beacon of hope for the galaxy? Is this role more important to her than the actual peace? Would my mother prefer to continue the war and sacrifice lives just to keep the high ground? If this is how the Resistance thinks, then you are a true danger to the galaxy. In this one thing, Snoke was right – _you are just a band of terrorists dressed up as heroes_.”

“I’m not like that,” Rey says hotly, even more so because she knows, deep down, that to some extent he’s right. Even if the reference to Snoke infuriates her, some Resistance fighters are really like that. It’s not by calculation; they are not bad people. They might not even realize it, but fighting against the First Order gave a meaning to their lives. It gave them a purpose and made them think better of themselves. It’s only natural. Everyone wants to be part of a just and noble cause. During the war, nobody has the time to wonder what the point of their life is.

“Aren’t you?” Ben asks.

“No, I’m not. And Leia isn’t.”

“Good,” he says. “Then we’ll have peace.”

* * *

He walks away after that and she watches him leave, helpless. All right, so they have talked, but it was a highly unsatisfactory conversation. He keeps his mental walls up, yet she can feel his dark emotions, churning inside of him. Annoyance, anger, impatience, exhaustion, and a wish to be away, far from her, to be somewhere else and to stop talking to her already. Deep under that, she senses fear. There is no peace in his mind, it’s in constant turmoil, occupied elsewhere, which doesn’t leave him much energy to deal with her.

Not in a thousand years would she imagine their meeting to be like that. Is it her vanity speaking? Was she expecting him to still secretly pine after her, or at least to show some emotion on seeing her, and now that he didn’t, her feelings are hurt?

No, it’s – it’s not that. Well, it’s not just that. Maybe there’s a little of that. But mainly, she wants to know, she _needs_ to know, what is going on with him.

Before she can really think about it, her legs carry her after him. He must have walked fast because it takes her a few minutes to catch up. When she finally finds him, he is in a nice spot – he found a large rock, casting a long shadow this late in the day, and hiding him completely from the view of those who might be walking from the direction of the camp. He has taken off his outer tunic and placed it, neatly folded, on the sand by the rock. He’s holding his red crossguard, preparing to practice forms.

As the sun gets lower on the horizon, the sand acquires the deep shade of gold that Rey remembers from Jakku. She watched it countless times, sitting in front of her AT-AT. She would like to tell him this. She would like to tell him about the good things because there were some: the home she made in that rusty old wreck, her little doll, the droid she once built from scrap parts, and the pictures of faraway places, lush forests and green hills, which she found in an old paper book hidden away in the carcass of an imperial star destroyer. She cut the pages out and put them on the walls of her makeshift home to look at them when falling asleep and waking up. And now, she wants to sit on the sand, her back against the red rock, and tell Ben that story, and then she wants to listen to whatever stories he would be willing to share with her.

Rey longs for another moment like the one they shared when they touched hands through the bond. She wants to see Ben Solo again, fragile, attentive and hopeful. She misses the quiet understanding they enjoyed, for just a few minutes, back then. Only then will he open up and tell her what’s tormenting him. She tries and tries, and the harder he pushes back, the hungrier and more desperate she gets. So she tries again.

“Ben,” she whispers from behind him.

He doesn’t say anything and doesn’t react in any way. He just stands with his back to her, his saber pointing to the ground.

Rey reaches out and presses her palms against his shoulder blades.

“What are you doing?” he asks in a hoarse voice.

Now that she has made that first gesture, something compels her to go on. It’s to provoke him, to break through the shell, to peel away his defences and finally _really _talk, but it’s also more than that. It’s a whole year of pain and anxious thoughts. It’s perhaps the regrets of what might have been. She slides her hands towards the front of his body and across the broad expanse of his chest. He jolts, surprised at the intimate contact, and extinguishes his saber.

“Stop that!” he says firmly.

It feels so right she could almost scream. _You’re not alone. Neither are you._ And more, more than that. His chiseled muscles under her palms, the warmth radiating off his body through the fabric of his top, as her fingers travel slowly over his chest, caressing and prodding. She hardly knows what she’s doing, and she longs to rest her head against that spot between his shoulder blades –

Ben bats her hands away and whirls around, glaring at her.

“I said don’t touch me!” he yells and shoves his hand between her thighs, fingering her brutally through her trousers.

“There!” he sneers. “How does it feel to be groped by your enemy without your consent?”

She throws a punch at his face but he catches her wrist in time and squeezes so hard she cries out. He advances on her, pressing her arm against her body, and slams her to the ground. She lands hard on her back.

“What is wrong with you?!” Rey shouts, scrambling to her feet.

“Nothing I want to discuss with you, scavenger,” he snarls and turns away.

“You don’t get to walk away like that! You will tell me what’s going on! Something bad has happened to you. I've sensed it through the bond since you arrived!”

“Oh, you can feel it too?” he hisses, turning back slowly and bringing his face so close to her she jerks away. “Have a good look, then.”

His eyes flash yellow.

Rey screams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ouch, that hurt. They have a long way to go… and here it really starts. Be warned, in the next chapter there will be a full range of extreme feels. Please let me know how you like it so far - I really treasure your feedback.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An extra long chapter today. Enjoy.

It is the middle of the night, yet Rey is wide awake, sitting on her bed and staring at the window, her eyes unseeing, as she replays the scene in her mind. She’s been doing it non-stop since she returned to her room.

She rubs her eyes fiercely, willing the incident to disappear from her memory. She would prefer to never have seen him again after Crait. She should never have come here with Leia.

The way he _groped_ her, then knocked her down to the ground: she won’t even think of it. This is not the most important issue at hand. This is just her personal problem. His contempt and brutality, catching her in an unguarded moment, and his vulgarity: it’s disgusting. _He_ is disgusting. It’s not like she doesn’t know anything about men, and she certainly knows a few things about the repulsive wretches that pullulate in places like the Niima Outpost. But him –

Stop. No more. When she recalls the shock of feeling his hand between her legs, her humiliation, tears come, and this is not a moment for tears.

She focuses on the yellow eyes.

What happened to him? What path did he follow since the throne room that led him to that? What terrible things did he do? Is there a return from that? What does it mean for the peace process, for the galaxy?

In the dark of the night, Rey says goodbye to her little fantasies of Ben Solo: to the pinch of idealistic, or maybe even romantic hope, to the imaginings of how they could help each other get stronger in the Force, to her silly wish to tell him stories about her doll and pictures from Jakku, and to the vivid memories of his burning, vulnerable eyes as he extended his trembling hand to her in the _Supremacy_’s throne room.

It’s all gone. Let the past die.

* * *

At eight o’clock in the morning, Rey knocks at General Organa’s door. Leia rises early. Rey has no idea what time the negotiation starts today – again, she hasn’t been invited – so she prefers to catch Leia as early as possible.

The General opens and nods to her but doesn’t smile.

“This isn’t a good time, Rey. I need to prepare for the meeting. Can it wait?”

“No. I’m sorry, but it can’t.”

She must sound desperate, or maybe it’s her face – the dark circles under her eyes after a sleepless night – because Leia surveys her for a moment, then moves to the side and ushers her in silently.

The moment the door closes, Rey whirls around.

“Leia, I know you are hiding something from us concerning this negotiation,” she blurts out, and General Organa raises her eyebrows, visibly displeased. “I need to know what it is. Something bad happened… it might change everything.”

“Something bad? Such as?”

“It concerns your son. But I need to know first,” Rey insists. “I can feel your fear. I need to know what you are afraid of.”

“I am your commanding officer, Rey,” Leia replies in her crisp, decisive voice. “I decide what and when to communicate to my people. If you are annoyed that you did not participate in the negotiation yesterday –”

“It’s not that. I’m afraid Ben might be lying to you,” Rey cuts her off. “His intentions might be… different from what he announced.”

“Why are you saying this? You haven’t even talked to him.”

“I have. I talked to him last night. And he attacked me.”

“He attacked you?” Leia frowns. “Unprovoked?”

Well. Be it as it may, this is not the time to tell Leia the painful details of that encounter.

“I tried to talk to him, but he was dismissive, and then, when I insisted, he attacked me.”

“I’m sorry, Rey. He has always had a violent temper. During peace talks, such behavior is unpardonable. I’ll talk to him about it first thing today. I only hope he didn’t hurt you.”

“He had yellow eyes,” Rey says and Leia’s breath hitches. Suddenly she looks scared. “Do you understand what it means? You cannot trust him. It might all be a trap.”

Leia stares at her in disbelief, but it’s nothing Rey has not foreseen. She’s prepared for the fact that the General’s first reaction will be denial.

“Rey, no,” Leia shakes her head. “He can’t have lied to me. He shared a… very distressing development. There was absolutely no reason for him to invent anything like that.”

“What development?”

“I am not at liberty to disclose –”

“Leia,” Rey interrupts her again. She’s agitated and it must be showing; it probably reduces her credibility so she will have to insist. She needs to make sure the General understands the stakes. “You can’t strike an alliance with a Sith and trust he will honour its conditions. It’s worse than an alliance with Snoke would be. Kylo Ren is likely manipulating you.”

“He told me Emperor Palpatine is alive,” Leia says quietly as if she was afraid someone could hear her through the walls.

It takes Rey a long moment to understand. She thought she was prepared for most of the possible lies he may have told Leia, but this takes her by surprise.

“How can he be alive? Anakin Skywalker killed him – everyone knows it – children in the Core Worlds learn about it at school! And that was thirty years ago –”

“He might not be alive in the physical sense,” Leia concedes hesitatingly. “His body was destroyed but he may have been capable of some kind of essence transfer. Ben tells me it’s a radical dark side power. The consciousness can be shifted onto another vessel, an object or someone else’s body. In any case, the Emperor’s imminent return is announced in a holocron Ben came across, dating from after Palpatine’s death.”

“Did you see that holocron?”

“Obviously not.”

“So there’s no proof of that besides Kylo Ren’s word?”

“He also said his Knights, while on a mission, found what looked like a huge military base somewhere in the Unknown Regions. Ben sent them back there with a few star destroyers, but nobody has returned. And that was two months ago.”

“This is all very sketchy evidence. And I am guessing you have only his word for that too?”

“Why would he make it up?” Leia asks impatiently, taking one step closer to Rey. So this is how she looks when she’s uncertain of something. Taken by surprise, out of her comfort zone, and scared – yes, scared that her secret hopes for a reconciliation with her son will be crushed again.

Rey understands her despair very well.

“Why? To get you to talk to him,” she says bluntly. “And you swallowed his bait, just like I did when I flew onto the _Supremacy_ to save him. He used me to get rid of Snoke and take power. And now, once you sign a deal with him – once the whole galaxy sees the Resistance has cowered before him – the First Order will be unstoppable. He wants to make the Resistance _irrelevant_, Leia! These are _his own words_. He told me that yesterday!”

Leia looks dazed; she shakes her head, deep in thought.

“He even brought Finn’s trooper friends here to please us!” Rey remembers angrily. “He told you about the Order’s internal matters for the same reason! And the coup – maybe there wasn’t any. Maybe he’s simply purged his organization of dissenters, and we are next on his list of people to get rid of!”

“I will confront him about it,” Leia states, recovering her composure, though her eyes glisten suspiciously. “We can confront him together.”

“No,” Rey says quickly. “No, this is not the way to go about it. He might hurt you.”

“My son will not hurt me, Rey.”

“I saw him kill his father!”

For a moment, as Leia stares at her in silence, Rey is afraid she has said too much.

“I also feel terrible about it,” she adds hastily, in a gentler voice. “After he asked me to rule the galaxy by his side one year ago, I didn’t expect him to treat me like a piece of bantha shit yesterday. I truly didn’t. But… _y__ou didn’t see those eyes_. He’s not your Ben anymore. You need to leave Pasaana. I will deal with him.”

Leia’s eyes narrow and her sharpness returns in an instant.

“Have you just said my son asked you to be his consort?” she shoots at Rey. “And you have neglected to share this key piece of information with me so far?”

Rey sighs. This is not the moment to discuss this… But it doesn’t look like the conversation can progress without all the cards being finally on the table.

She tells the story she should have told long ago. Leia already knows what happened in Luke’s temple the night Ben fled – Rey told her just after Crait, and maybe it’s this that reignited Leia’s hope for her son’s redemption. Leia also knows they killed Snoke and fought his guards together, then Ben decided to take up the Supreme Leader’s mantle, they got knocked out by the Holdo maneuver, Rey woke up first and left. But now, Rey also tells her about the Force bond, the hand touching, Ben’s plea to her in the throne room. Leia doesn’t interrupt her even once, sitting very still on her chair.

“When we’re close, we can feel each other’s emotions,” Rey explains. “It’s like a live connection, and he – I think he manipulated it. Yesterday, he projected feelings of fear and suffering to me, probably to make his story of Palpatine credible. But he is – the yellow eyes mean there’s no conflict anymore, he’s fully on the dark side!”

Her voice breaks and Leia watches her, her mouth slightly agape. This is all wrong. It was not the right way to tell her the truth, and it’s definitely not good to reveal how much Rey cares, or cared. It doesn’t matter anymore, though. What she had with Ben was a precious if terrifying secret but at present, after yesterday, it is worthless. Meaningless. It is a burden Rey is relieved to shed. And as it’s all over, Leia will surely see there’s no point in discussing it. No point wondering what feelings prompted Ben to make his offer and no point questioning Rey on her internal fight before she turned him down.

“A Force bond!” Leia repeats. She has tears in her eyes and Rey shifts uneasily. She has never seen Leia like this. Rey also feels like crying, but no, there will be no more crying over Kylo Ren. It’s time to act now.

“With this connection between you – you still think he’s leading us into a trap?”

“The person I saw yesterday was not the same man,” Rey insists. “I thought I knew the worst of him already, but I was wrong.”

“I was so happy to see him arrive,” Leia says and finally bursts out crying, but it doesn’t last long. It lasts only for a few seconds, in fact. Then she regains control, as usual, and Rey almost wishes Leia could let go, for once. Let herself mourn what she’s lost. Although, actually, it is perhaps easier when one pretends one cares less.

“What are you going to do?” Leia asks.

“I will confront him. Fight him, if need be.”

“I still think it makes no sense for him to be inventing such an elaborate and strange story just to manipulate us, Rey!” Leia stresses, her rationality returning. “Him being so far gone on the dark side is extremely troubling, and his intentions need to be questioned. But when he told me about his dreams… he was really scared, Rey. I think the emotions you felt from him were real.”

“What dreams?” Rey turns around. She was already heading for the door, ready to go and find Kylo Ren.

“The nightmares about Palpatine. Ben sees the imperial army in his dreams, the sky peppered with hundreds of star destroyers. A forest covered in red haze, where he is engaged in a fight, and a red beam, like Starkiller or the Death Star, striking a planet. And the worst of it, he can hear Palpatine’s laugh… Rey? What’s wrong?”

Rey clutches her heart. She can’t breathe. She falls down onto a chair in the corner and puts her face in her hands.

_Stupid stupid idiot. I am so stupid_.

This is too much. Not a second blow like this in less than twenty-four hours. First Ben’s yellow eyes and his despicable behavior, and now…

“Rey,” the older woman sits on the sofa next to the chair and puts her hand on Rey’s arm. “It’s scary enough already. What’s going on now?”

“It’s much worse than I thought,” Rey utters.

“How so?”

“I was wrong. He’s not inventing any of this.”

“And you know this because…?”

“I have those dreams too.”

“You dream of Palpatine?” Leia whispers and this time she sounds really, really terrified.

“I had no idea what or who it was. It was just a few times… I thought it was a nightmare. I saw some of the scenes you described. Not all, but most of them. And the laugh, yes. I heard it too.”

“So he is telling the truth. But how is that worse? At least we don’t need to be afraid of him –”

“Have you forgotten about the eyes?” Rey snaps. “And why do you think Ben and I both dream of that? Palpatine, or whoever that is, knows about us and wants something. He’s trying to communicate with us. And those yellow eyes? They mean he has already got to Ben.”

* * *

Leia was right, as usual. It makes no sense for Kylo Ren to be inventing a crazy story about Emperor Palpatine being alive, just to… to what? To scare his mother into signing a peace treaty which he doesn’t even need because his own army is one thousand times stronger than the Resistance anyway? But Rey isn’t thinking straight; her own discoveries and Leia’s revelations, the panic she feels now, and the shock from yesterday’s events still reverberating through her, all this makes for some incoherence in her mind. She’s not sure she’s being very logical or interprets it all in the right way, but she knows there is a danger, and she knows Kylo Ren is keeping secrets, not just from her, but also from Leia. It’s urgent, she needs to act, though she has truly no idea what she will do when she confronts him. Rey has never been one for overthinking. If anything, she tends to act too soon, on an impulse – for which she can hardly be blamed now.

His whereabouts are not difficult to discover. The negotiation is supposed to resume at ten o’clock, Leia told her, and something tells Rey Kylo Ren is an early riser. She follows his Force signature, easy to read now that he is so close physically, and she finds him by the rocks, at the entrance of the canyon. This is more or less where she left him yesterday, after he flashed his yellow eyes and she ran away, never looking back.

When she walks in on him, he is sitting on the ground cross-legged, facing the sun. It makes Rey pause but just for a second. She will not be fooled again by how peaceful and unthreatening he looks. These are tricks. He opens his eyes and notices her, and he barely has the time to frown when she kicks the sand at her feet and sends a cloud of it straight into his face.

Kylo Ren makes a startled sound and extends a hand to protect himself, but there’s so much sand that some of it penetrates his Force shield and hits him anyway. He reels to the side and starts rubbing his eyes. In other circumstances, Rey would tell him not to rub because it will only make it worse, but now she’s silent, igniting her lightsaber and swaying it in preparation.

He jumps to his feet and calls his weapon to his hand.

“You want to fight dirty?” he barks. “I will give you a fight.”

He slams his blade so hard into hers that he almost knocks it out of her hand. After that opening, he doesn’t stop. He advances, dealing blow after fierce blow with astonishing speed for someone of this size, and terrifying strength. Rey parries well, even if she hasn’t yet been able to land a blow herself. She helps herself with the Force but so does he, and his bigger size and physical strength give him a very distinct advantage.

He presses on relentlessly, and Rey is constantly forced to draw back. This is nothing like in the Starkiller forest when he was severely wounded, weak from blood loss and barely conscious. She generates a Force blast to push him away and catch her breath, but he counters it with one of his own, which she manages to resist – only just. As she staggers from the force of his attack, he strikes again. This time, even if she manages to deflect, her weapon flies out of her hand and drops onto the ground. She calls it to her, but he intercepts it, then kicks her in the legs so hard she stumbles and falls down, screaming in pain.

He puts the tip of his blade to her throat, arresting her movement. The sun is in her eyes now and she can barely see him; she cannot tell what colour his eyes are.

“And what were you thinking exactly?” he hisses, rubbing his face again and shaking the grains of sand out of his hair furiously. “You thought reading old books and slicing through rocks and trees in your stupid base will make you a match for me? _I have years of training on you_. Go back to school and find yourself a teacher, kid.”

Incredibly, he throws the hilt of her saber back to her and steps away. Rey catches it and jumps up, mortified and enraged.

“You had no right to behave to me like you did yesterday!” she shouts the first thing that comes to her mind and curses herself, because their personal fight is not the most important issue now.

“Stop following me and it won’t happen again,” he retorts, extinguishes his blade and turns away.

“I know about Palpatine,” Rey yells after him. Will that ever end? Will they always fight, shout, then he will walk away, and she’ll be left screaming after him?

“So my mother talked? What a surprise,” he sneers. “Well then, now you know why I said I have more important things on my mind than the Resistance.”

“I have the same dreams as you, Ben,” Rey breathes. Her heart is still calming down after their violent confrontation. She should have started by telling him about the dreams, but she needed to get a few things out of her system first. It was a stupid choice because in the end, nothing is out of her system; they have fought, he has won, and she has been humiliated yet again.

There’s no time to think about it, however, because after her last words he turns around, looking utterly shocked, and starts walking back towards her in fast strides. She shifts, surprised, ready to ignite her sword again –

“What?” Ben says, wide-eyed, and now his eyes are definitely not yellow. He grabs her by the elbows and shakes her a little, but it isn’t aggressive. It rather conveys a sense of urgency; he peers at her face intently. “What are you saying? What dreams, Rey?”

This is the first time he has uttered her name since he arrived on Pasaana.

“The endless sea of star destroyers in the sky. The red laser beam. The darkness… and in it, the cackling. And something else, too…”

“What else?!” he squeezes her arms. It is painful but she is quite sure he’s not doing it on purpose. He’s just –

_Terrified_.

“Something I’d rather not talk about,” Rey says quietly. “Not yet. I didn’t know… I thought it was just a nightmare.”

He swallows and lets go of her abruptly, as if he only now realized he was holding her. He takes a step back and runs his hand through his hair. When he glances at her, he looks furious. Again.

“And this is why I told you to stay away from me!” he yells. “This is why I found a way to keep this freaking Force bond shut! If only you listened –”

“What?” Rey says, bewildered. Because, what? There are a few things here that call for explanation. But first –

“You found a way to control the bond? How? And why?! You wanted it gone?”

It’s not like she dreamt of the bond opening again after Crait. She feared it would result in an angry showdown, exactly like all their interactions on Pasaana so far. But she wouldn’t want to close it definitively, and she didn’t think he would. Again, a wrong assumption, entirely based on her feelings, while it turns out he feels very differently.

For some reason, it hurts. That bond is special. It is terrifying and perhaps embarrassing, an uncomfortable secret, but, at the same time, it felt good to be part of something so… unique. Rey didn’t find any mention of it in the books she read. He did, apparently, and he searched for information because he wanted to shut it down permanently.

“Of course I wanted it gone,” Kylo Ren barks. “We became enemies again, didn’t we? And what good would it do to see each other via the bond and just shout and fight, like we’re doing now? Why would I need that in my life? You think I don’t have enough enemies around me?”

“I’m not your enemy,” Rey says quietly and he finds no reply to that. He just stares at her in silence, then looks away.

“Anyway,” he resumes grumpily. “When the dreams started, I knew I had to find a way to keep it closed.”

“You didn’t want him to find me through you,” it dawns on Rey. It seems such an improbable explanation, given his hostile attitude, but it cannot mean anything else.

“Apparently it’s too late for that,” Ben spits, visibly annoyed by her insinuation that he did that to protect her, but he doesn’t deny it. “Now he knows you. And every time you try to open the bond – every time you try to connect your mind to mine, to sound me out, to get to know my emotions, you send a flare into the Force, which he can feel. He will come for you, just like –”

“Just like he has come for you?”

“He hasn’t yet. But it’s a matter of time. He’s showing me things through the dreams. He’s trying to tempt and intimidate me at once. He’s coming, Rey. It will be soon. And once he comes –”

“Once he comes, we need to be on the same side. The First Order and the Resistance. To beat him together.”

“Thanks but no, thanks,” Ben says sullenly, shaking the sand off his clothes. He really doesn’t seem to be a fan of sand. “It’s enough if you kindly refrain from opening a second battlefront at my back. I told you I want to end the war with the Resistance so that I can deal with Palpatine.”

“Well, this is not how it’s going to go,” Rey announces, folding her arms over her chest. “Because, for one, he _has_come for you already. What’s with the yellow eyes, Ben?”

“Nothing to do,” he retorts, his fists clenching. “It’s not Palpatine. It’s me.”

“Why? And how do you know? He can influence you. Through the visions in your dreams. You wouldn’t even realize –”

“Rey,” he cuts her off. “I had Snoke in my head all my life. Believe me, I will know if Palpatine or anyone else tries to get to me in that way. He hasn’t. I am becoming stronger in the dark side, that’s all. The eyes are the result of that.”

“Some fine result. Congratulations! When did it start? They’re not that colour all the time. When did it happen first?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“But we need to talk about it! It’s all related, we need to decide what to do!”

“I asked you a question too and you refused to reply,” he reminds her wistfully. “You want to tell me what else you saw in your dreams? I’m listening.”

“No,” she replies quietly.

“Right. And by the way, _we_ are not deciding anything. I’m here to make peace with the Resistance, to get my closure, and then I’ll go deal with Palpatine. On my own.”

Rey opens her mouth to disagree, but he looks at her in a way that silences her. It’s not a threatening way – that, if anything, would only spur her to press on. Rather, he has that desperate, tired look on his face. _Please_, he seems to be saying. _Please, stop_. _I have no energy to bicker about it now_.

“You have to tell everyone about this new threat, Ben,” she says in a gentler tone. “They need to know. They will find out anyway.”

He huffs impatiently but doesn’t protest.

* * *

“It was a dream,” Ben says, staring ahead. They are sitting side by side on the ground, their backs against the red rock. The sun is already getting stronger, so they have chosen the shaded side. The wind is playing gently with the dark strands of Ben’s hair and this peaceful movement is in stark contrast to the severity of his expression and the hardness of his jawline. “I knew even then it wasn’t realistic. I just chose not to dwell on the details. I’d never had a dream come true, so it was tempting to forget everything that made it impossible.”

A few minutes earlier, contrary to Rey’s expectations, he accepted when she offered a truce and a change of subject, for both of them to cool down.

“So, you repaired the lightsaber?” he asked when they sat down, and she was proud to confirm. He listened eagerly and even made some appreciative comments on the design of the hilt. Then, the conversation swerved towards the events during which said saber got broken, and it quickly became very honest.

It means a lot to hear what it looked like from his perspective. So he didn’t really expect her to accept his offer? He calls it a dream. It should be a very emotional confession, but he remains impassive. Perhaps because the emotions which he then felt are now long gone?

“I’ve also never had a dream come true,” Rey offers. “I know very well how it feels when you want something so much you actually manage to persuade yourself it will happen.”

She doesn’t mean just the endless wait for her parents. She also means him. Back then, she had her own dream: turning him to the Light and taking him to the Resistance. Like Ben, she didn’t dwell too much on the feasibility of that plan. She just wanted it so much that she chose to disregard all the obstacles.

What was it, though, that she wanted so badly? Was it really turning him and giving the Resistance a powerful ally, or was it finding a person for herself and a belonging with that person?

“What I told you then about your parents,” Ben resumes, “did it help, at least, or did it just hurt you?”

“Truth always helps, in the end. I think.”

He nods, deep in thought.

“If I had agreed to stop firing on the fleet,” he says suddenly, “would you have stayed?”

Rey has asked herself this question hundreds of times. She still doesn’t know the answer.

“Maybe,” she replies. “I wouldn’t have left so abruptly, at least, without even discussing what your offer meant. But the collision with the _Raddus_ would still have happened, we would still have been knocked out, and after waking up, there’s no telling whether I wouldn’t have panicked and escaped anyway. Or maybe we would simply not manage to reach any agreement on what galactic government should be. Probably our starting positions would be very different.”

“What would your position be?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a politician. Perhaps I would have left because I was just not up to the task.”

“So many reasons to leave, and not one to stay,” he comments, and it doesn’t even sound resentful. It’s still coolly intellectual, as if they were discussing business and not personal matters. Perhaps it was all about business, and there was too little feeling between them for her to stay?

So she pushes back in the same business-like manner.

“You’re forgetting the most important reason for me to leave, Ben. Your people would never have accepted me as their ruler by your side. They would have staged a coup against you.”

“They did anyway.”

“It would have happened even sooner if I had stayed. We could both be exiled, if not dead, by now.”

“It wouldn’t be so easy for them to get rid of us both,” Ben says, and she has no reply to that because she can also hear the unspoken ‘We’d be stronger together’, even if he hasn’t said it.

“And it would be easier to introduce changes in the Order if I wasn’t alone to push for them,” he remarks casually instead.

“Change is difficult,” Rey replies. She doesn’t know many things about power, politics, or the military, but she knows one or two things about human nature, and she is sure that kind of change would have been damn difficult to bring about. “We would have tried. But you’re probably trying now, yet the effects are barely visible to the outside world after a year.”

“Nobody said it would be simple. When I asked you to stay and build something new, I never promised it would be quick or easy. You can’t seriously expect it would be.”

She is silent, thinking of a possible reply, while he adds:

“For someone who has been abandoned, you give up on people rather easily.”

Finally, there’s some bitterness under his cool self-possession. This brings emotions to the table, which breaks the unspoken rules of this conversation. Because it’s supposed to be a hypothetical talk, a “what if” game that should not cause them any more heartbreak. After all, it’s all in the past now.

“I don’t agree. I’m not giving up on the Resistance, even if things can be difficult.”

“But between us there are no ‘things’ anymore, Rey,” Ben says in his distracted, distant, and vaguely melancholy way. “That was all there was. That one time, in the throne room. It was a bad timing, and it didn’t work. At least you’re more loyal to the Resistance than you were to me. That’s some consolation.”

He looks fed up now and the dark circles around his eyes are getting more pronounced. The cautious spirit of camaraderie has disappeared and they’re getting bitter again.

“You need my help, Ben,” Rey utters. There, she said it. Enough reminiscing, back to the reality and the Palpatine issue, which they haven’t even discussed yet. She needs to know more: what has Ben found out and what are the different signs, apart from the dreams they apparently share, that have led him to suspect a threat of this magnitude is approaching? But whatever it is, whatever awaits them, it’s good to open with an offer of help.

Even for her, though, it isn’t as straightforward as she makes it sound. Does she really want to team up with him? Does she even _trust_ him? And does she trust she could come out of any partnership with him completely unscathed? Sometimes she thinks he’s toxic, and the relationship they have – whatever it is – is toxic too. Not to mention the yellow eyes and the possibility, which Ben denies vehemently, that Palpatine or whoever it is already controls him to some extent. She might not be safe with him. But on the other hand, even if Ben gives her every opportunity to take her leave, she just can’t. His pain is right in front of her, no matter how he tries to hide it, and she can’t turn her back on him. Even if he thinks she already has.

“I hope I don’t need your help. And I don’t want it anyway.”

“Why not? You know I’m strong in the Force. I might not be sufficiently trained, but I have progressed. I am an asset you shouldn't be discarding so lightly.”

“Because I don’t trust you, Rey,” Ben says, looking straight at her for the first time since they sat down. “I don’t trust you to stay on my side. To work together. To not abandon me and run away in the middle of things. I don’t trust you to help me do what needs to be done when the time comes, whatever it is. You would just spend your time trying to turn me. And I’m sick of your expectations and of the disappointment in your eyes. _Don’t go down that path_,” he repeats, bitterly, the words she uttered to him in the throne room, “I don’t ever want to hear that again. I have a chance to do something good where I am now. But you make it look small and unimportant, because for you there’s only one right path – away from the Order – and I will never stop being a failure in your eyes unless I follow it. I’ve had enough of it, Rey. I will never be Ben Solo the Resistance hero, the Jedi master. Do you understand? _I can’t be what you want_. So I prefer to confront Palpatine on my own rather than waste my energy on arguing with you and hurtle myself over and over again against your self-righteousness.”

Rey gapes at him in stunned silence.

“My self-righteousness?” she stutters. “How am I self-righteous? How can you be so unfair?”

“You are terribly self-righteous. I prefer to be alone than team up with someone who constantly makes me feel inadequate!”

“Ben, there are certain things you’ve done that you can’t deny –”

“Stop, Rey,” he cuts her off. “Just stop. You’ve only now said that whatever I’ve been trying to change, the effects are barely visible. Do you realize how unfair that is? I’ve done plenty of things in the last year, inside and outside the Order. I have freed hundreds of thousands of slaves on worlds the Order controls. I have changed the stormtrooper programme so that children don’t get kidnapped from their families anymore. I have dismantled several criminal gangs which terrorized whole systems! There was a coup against me precisely because I’m changing things. But for you, it’s nothing. I’ve finally done things I can be proud of, and you haven’t even noticed. Either you’re so self-righteous, or your precious Resistance is feeding you lies about me and the First Order. So I don’t want you by my side. I just want you to stop being a problem so that I can devote my resources to fighting the real threat. I’m tired, Rey.”

He gets up and doesn’t give her another look as he leaves.

Rey stares after him, speechless.

* * *

Later this morning, she stands behind Leia’s chair in the red tent and listens to Ben tell everyone about the visions he has, the Palpatine holocron he discovered while looking for Force artifacts on obscure worlds, and the hidden imperial military base in the Unknown Regions. Chaos breaks out in the room – the Resistance people are shocked, incredulous, and slightly panicked. Ben flashes her a torturous look.

_I knew it_.

_They had the right to know_, she shoots back at him. _Wait. They will come round_.

He sighs, looks away and shakes his head. Are they talking to each other in their minds now, or was that dialogue just obvious from their faces? Rey isn’t sure. But at least he’s not ignoring her anymore. And Leia invited her to the meeting after Rey told her Ben was going to come clear on the subject of the new threat.

Surprisingly, nobody dismisses it as unimportant or accuses Ben of inventing it. Rey was fully prepared to back his story and to confess she had the same dreams, but it doesn’t seem necessary, and he looks at her sharply when she is about to do it. _Not now_. Perhaps the negotiation is not advanced enough for her to admit to any connection with him, be it only via shared visions. Or perhaps it’s not wise to tell the Resistance that a new villain is targeting personally not only Kylo Ren, but also their last Jedi.

Poe has a completely different theory anyway.

“What if that base your Knights found wasn’t built by Palpatine but by Hux and his clique of rogue officers?” he suggests. “What if he was building another superweapon in secret from you? Or better still, what if it was Snoke, who kept it secret from you, or both you and Hux?”

Obviously, Poe pays more attention to the military side of the news than the mystique Force aspect. The visions and holocrons aren’t his field of expertise. But Ben doesn’t argue.

“Everything is possible,” he admits in a slightly tired voice. “What’s important is that there is a serious threat. Someone has built that base – it might not even be the only one – and intends to use it. Two months ago, I sent three star destroyers there. They didn’t come back and the comms are silent. Be it Palpatine, Snoke or anyone else, they likely won’t be waiting politely for me to send a new contingent of ships.”

This is true. Tomorrow, Rey needs to see that holocron and the holos of the military base. But that will be tomorrow; today has been eventful enough. With every new revelation, the outlook seems worse.

And not everything has been revealed yet. He didn’t tell her when his eyes turned yellow for the first time. She didn’t tell him about one part of her dream. She will have to, but now she really doesn’t know how.

* * *

In the evening, as Rey prepares to go to bed, she thinks back to their conversation. He called her self-righteous, he said he didn’t trust her. Trust, or rather the lack of it, is clearly the underlying issue here. Nobody trusts anybody fully: the Resistance doesn’t trust Kylo Ren, he doesn’t trust the Resistance, and Rey and him don’t trust each other. Impossible to achieve anything together in these conditions. What will happen when the two sides of this negotiation start discussing ideas on the future of the galaxy? How will they ever manage to come to any understanding?

But the future of the galaxy is a complex matter. Between the two of them – Rey and Ben – it doesn’t need to be that difficult. She’s not forgetting the nasty way he lashed out at her yesterday. She hasn’t forgiven him for this, and he hasn’t asked for forgiveness. But for now, she wants to talk about other things.

She tries to open the bond. It’s silent on his side but she knows he can feel her now that they’re so close. At the moment, he must be staying in another room in the same corridor, almost next door, unless he is sleeping on his shuttle, but this is still very near. At this distance, the bond is an almost tangible connection, a wire running between them. Rey focuses on it, finds the thread, and pulls.

“Don’t shut me out, Ben,” she whispers. “Let me in.”

Surprisingly, it doesn’t take long. He appears in front of her, half-lying, half-sitting on the opposite side of her bed, his back to the wall, so that her feet point at him. He’s holding a datapad; he must have been reading. His clothes are different, loose and soft. They’re grey, and it’s not even very dark grey.

“A different colour!” Rey exclaims. The fabric looks very nice, though she wouldn’t dare to touch it to check. In all her life, Rey has never owned nice sleeping clothes, or any sleeping clothes at all, for that matter. In bed, she just uses old clothing that is not good enough to wear outside anymore – and Rey’s standards in this matter are rather low anyway – but that is not so worn out yet as to be completely useless. Now she’s wearing precisely that kind of rags, and she gets a bit self-conscious because she must look like – well, like a scavenger next to an emperor, which is essentially what they both are.

Ben is wearing a blank expression on his face; he’s not annoyed, not happy, not afraid, and not moved to see her. Then he suddenly comments in his sarcastic manner:

“Well, in the absence of any other good reasons for you to stay with the Order, that could have been one. You could ask for any clothes you wanted.”

“Oh, so it wouldn’t have to be all black silk and lace?” she shoots back because something in his remark rubs her the wrong way. It is amazing how prickly they can be around each other.

“Black silk and lace?” Ben raises an eyebrow. “How little you know me! What were we thinking in that throne room? We barely knew each other. We talked a few times, for a few minutes, and we imagined… _I _imagined –”

“Right,” Rey says, mortified. “Maybe we’ve talked enough about that. Let’s change the subject?”

There’s no need for him to press the point, telling her how disenchanted he is with her now that he’s getting to know her better, and how relieved that she refused his offer. She tries to summon back the good will with which she opened the connection. They just need to forget their personal history and focus on the task ahead.

Rey crawls closer to him on the bed. Once he realizes what she’s doing, he sits up a bit straighter, as if preparing for another fight. None of that; tonight, she will be a paragon of the Light side of the Force. She settles in front of him on her duvet, cross-legged.

“Ben,” she starts. There are many ways to say that and she chooses one that is direct but seems the least confrontational. “I don’t want you to face this alone.”

He sighs impatiently.

“Your sense of duty to the galaxy is well noted, Rey. You can sleep peacefully now.”

“I won’t sleep peacefully. You should know that much.”

He’s opening his mouth to respond, but she silences him, raising her palm to signal she hasn’t finished yet.

“Ben, whatever has happened… because I know something has, although you’re not telling me… it has done something bad to you. And I don’t mean just the yellow eyes. I think you’ve given up on yourself. You will face Palpatine, and you’ll go down in a blaze of glory. You want this to be the end. _Your end_. And you don’t want me to be there to see it.”

“And what of it?” he asks in a tired voice, looking at her impassively. “What does it matter if it is the case? If I _have_ given up on myself? Everyone else, every single person, has given up on me.”

“This is not true. Your mother cried today when we talked about you. She loves you.”

“You shouldn't be talking to her about me.”

“Ben, can you hear what I’m saying? There are people who care about you. She’s one of them but I care about you, too.”

He shakes his head.

“We’ve talked about it. You are still holding on. Let go, Rey. Let go of Ben Solo and your dreams about him and you. He doesn’t exist. He’s never coming back.”

“You’re right,” Rey says. She has thought about this part long and hard, and she is sure of what she’s going to say. “I haven’t listened to you before, and what I hoped for was just a fantasy. So I agree. No more waxing lyrical about Ben Solo and turning to the Light. No more dealing in absolutes. It’s a Sith thing anyway, right?”

“Right.”

“I want to look at you and see you for who you are. I want to try to accept you as you are. _But you must let me in_.”

He’s silent but his eyes don’t leave her.

“Please, _Kylo_,” Rey says. As this name leaves her lips, she shivers. For the time being it still sounds sinister. It has a foreign echo to it and it makes her look at him differently. But the effect on him is the opposite. He blinks, raises his eyebrows, clearly surprised, and shifts on the bed.

“You asked me to join you once and I refused. So I won’t be waiting for you to ask me again. _I’m asking you_. I want to help you deal with whatever it is that threatens the galaxy.”

“Rey,” he says in a surprisingly gentle manner. “It’s ok. It’s something I need to do alone. You understand? Finishing what my grandfather started turns out not to be what I thought. He killed Palpatine. I must make sure he remains dead. It’s my fight, and I’m not going to risk your life. You – you will need to hide from him. You’ll need to cut yourself off from the Force, like Skywalker did –”

“It’s _our _fight!” Rey shouts. Panic overtakes her; she can feel him slipping away. He’s going to his death, and he’s already accepted it. “And you’re _not_ alone! You’re not alone!”

She rises on her knees and puts her arms around his neck. She shouldn’t, not after how he reacted yesterday when she touched him, but she throws all caution to the wind.

“Let me help you. Let me come with you,” she whispers. “I don’t want you to die, I can’t bear it.”

He can act all closed off and dismissive if he feels like it, but she won’t play this game. She won’t pretend she doesn’t care. She can’t bear to think of him dying alone, fighting some evil that is bigger than either of them, just because he’s convinced nobody cares about whether he lives or dies.

“Trust me,” Rey murmurs. “You can trust me.”

He doesn’t answer but doesn’t push her away, either, so she buries her face in the angle of his neck. He smells of spices and wood she doesn’t know the names of, but they make her think of lush green worlds she has always wanted to visit. He’s warm, her lips are almost touching his skin, he can surely feel her breath on his neck, and he’s actually shivering a little, either because of this physical contact or because of emotion, or both.

That’s all she had to say. She has no other arguments up her sleeve. In the end, she can’t protect him from himself. It’s like she said earlier – she can help, she wants to help, but he needs to let her in. The next move is up to him, and –

– And he puts his arm around her waist and slowly pulls her to him, then cups the back of her head with his other hand.

Neither of them speaks. Rey curls against him and he envelops her in his arms, his big hand on her head like a shield that keeps them enclosed in their cocoon, away from the rest of the world.

It’s warm and comfortable, and so soothing that Rey falls asleep. When she wakes up many hours later, she’s lying in her bed, under the duvet, and she’s alone. The connection has faded. But her clothes, and her hair, smell of the mix of spices and wood that she now recognizes as his scent.

She exhales slowly and buries her nose in the pillow.

What a day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you enjoy this emotional rollercoaster? Hope you liked what I did with the elements of the TROS trailer and footage in this chapter. 
> 
> When I watched the movies, sometimes Rey annoyed me because she was so volatile. One moment she shoots him with a blaster, next moment she sends herself over to his ship in an escape pod because they touched hands. But as I write her as a character, I love this trait in her: the impulsivity, which can even lead to contradiction. There’s something so hopeful and positive, spontaneous and naive (in a nice way) about it.
> 
> Next time on “Closure”: Kylo’s POV. His internal torment is what I live for.
> 
> Thanks for reading and for all your precious feedback, which makes my day and my week!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: graphic descriptions of violence in this chapter. Angsty today.

Kylo wraps himself up tighter in his cloak as he steps outside the shelter. It’s six thirty in the morning, the sun is rising, and it’s chilly. The nights are really cold here. It must be like this on all desert planets, he reckons, which makes him think of Rey, so he stops abruptly. Anyway, the cold is welcome; so far, he has been feeling too hot on Pasaana. He’s up early – he hasn’t really slept at all – and he’s looking forward to some meditation and combat training before the temperature rises.

Saar-Yen-Dii is waiting for him in front of the entrance, clad in full armour like a black spectre.

“Take this mask off,” Kylo says, passing by without stopping. “Nobody will see you at this time of the day.”

Behind him, the helmet hisses open. The girl is sensitive. Perhaps she doesn’t want everyone to see how young she is because it makes her appear vulnerable. She prefers to hide behind the mask. Much as he did for many years.

He knows better now.

They’re walking towards the rocks. These two hours in the morning are for him, even if he will share them today with Saar-Yen-Dii. He doesn’t mind her, and this is a lot to say for Kylo Ren. She’s totally unobtrusive and not clingy, a loner, which is why they get on. This is also why he took her with him to Pasaana. Were she a different person, he would have left her on the _Finalizer_.

Behind a large rock, he gestures to the ground and sits down cross-legged. She settles next to him in the same position.

“Feel the ground,” Kylo says. “The rock behind you. The air. The stillness of this place. Close your eyes and explore it.”

She does as she’s told. It comes easy to her; like all Cereans, Saar-Yen-Dii has a natural propensity for meditation. She’s calm and quiet, and sitting still doesn’t bother her nearly as much as it bothered Kylo at her age. She has a special connection to the Force, a very focused and sharp one. She’s not easily distracted.

Focused and sharp, but dark. She is reaching for darkness even now. This time, Kylo lets her, but he’s not too glad. She’s not old enough to be able to choose her way, and anyway these days Kylo’s not so sure anymore that a choice needs to be made at all. His own choice might not have done him as much good as he previously thought. It has certainly taken him to the depths he wasn’t willing to explore.

Saar-Yen-Dii seeks darkness because she found strength in rage the first time ever that she reached for the Force. Kylo picked her up in a brothel on Coruscant. The Order cracked a people trafficking ring operating in the Mid Rim, killed the gangsters, and followed one of the leads to the underground Coruscant where children, young women and men were being sold and exploited. The troopers raided the place. The operation didn’t require Kylo’s participation, but he went along anyway. He spent his days doing politics, reading paperwork, and sitting in meetings. He wasn’t exactly bored, but he needed some action.

When they swarmed the place and chaos broke out, Kylo felt Saar-Yen-Dii before he saw her. Her Force signature roared in fear and anger. She was in one of the back rooms: a tall, bony teenager, panic and fury on her face as she was strangling a shorter middle-aged man – a client who tried to approach her, as it turned out, and was now desperately fighting for his life.

The next minutes were a mess. All the workers in that place were slaves. All had been kidnapped and held against their will, all were underage, and some of them shockingly so. They weren’t supposed to stay there long; usually they were sold to shady individuals or to other establishments after a few days or weeks, then disappeared without a trace. Kylo ordered the troopers to kill all the patrons and the owners. No quarter. No questions asked.

Sometimes he really hated the galaxy he was supposed to rule.

“Let him go,” he barked at the alien girl, who was still holding the man firmly by the throat, even if she was so terrified that she was shaking and crying. “I will show you.”

She released the man and Kylo snapped his neck with a tweak of his fingers, from the distance of ten metres.

“Don’t waste your energy. Don’t let them come close if you don’t have to. It’s an unnecessary risk. Use the Force.”

She gaped at him silently.

When the troopers freed the slaves and called in the local authorities – Kylo swore to himself that in due time he would deal with the Coruscant ineffective authorities, too – he beckoned her over.

“Come with me,” he said, and she followed him without any hesitation.

She didn’t want to go back home to Cerea. Her parents had been murdered by the gang when she had been kidnapped. In the Coruscant brothel, she was one of the newest arrivals and nothing bad had happened to her yet. The Order intervened on time, at least for her, even if it was too late for many others.

For lack of other ideas, Kylo let her stay on the _Finalizer_. He trained her a little but she mostly trained with his Knights, and spent time with the younger troopers.

She had been changed by what happened to her and her family. The Force awakened in her moments before Kylo discovered her. She had no idea what was going on with her and was as terrified as the man she almost killed before Kylo finished the job for her. She was fifteen, and fifteen was too early for a first kill. She got better at controlling the Force and her emotions under Kylo’s and his Knights’ guidance. For the sake of balance, and because she was so young, Kylo also taught her how to reach for the Light. Cereans were supposed to be able to access both sides of the Force because of their binary brains. So he trained her in things he hadn’t practiced himself for years.

Still, she favoured Darkness. Perhaps it was difficult to expect she’d do what he told her to if he was not doing it himself. Not that he could afford to bask in the Light. In the months after Crait, the First Order under his leadership cracked down on countless operations like the one of the Mid Rim gang. There was just no end to it. It quickly became clear to Kylo that Snoke knew all about it and never did anything to stop it – he even did business with criminal syndicates, he took their money and closed his eyes, especially to the big ones like the Hutts or Crimson Dawn. What Kylo found out about the reality of the First Order since he took power went beyond his wildest imaginings, and only made him realise how naïve he had been, trusting blindly in his master’s wisdom.

One good thing was that Snoke was dead and gone. Kylo should have killed him much earlier. Before Snoke made him kill his –

“Enough meditation. Let’s do some sparring,” he says, getting up abruptly.

Saar-Yen-Dii has no lightsaber but they use training weapons. She is good: fast and strong, very agile, and very determined. She will fall a hundred times and get up a hundred more. She never complains, not even when she’s covered in scratches and burns after training. She always thanks him, even when he throws things at her and she gets hit because she can’t deflect them all in time. She is loyal, like a silent weapon at his side.

Saar-Yen-Dii is a reminder of what Kylo wants to achieve, of the reasons why he’s doing this. The dark cantinas, the underground brothels, the gang dealings, all this has been a thorn in Kylo’s side for a long time. He has always been sensitive to the huge amount of injustice and lawlessness in the galaxy, where children like Saar-Yen-Dii – and like Rey when she was younger – were not safe. What must Rey’s childhood have been in the godforsaken desert of Jakku? Was she ever abused? Beaten up, molested, raped? Kylo’s skin crawls at the thought of it. He has vowed to eradicate this, to bring order, so that no child in the galaxy, _his_ galaxy, is ever exploited again.

The Jedi had done nothing about all the rampant crime and slavery. They did not interfere. The Republic didn’t, either. His own Senator mother had more important things to care about – such as interplanetary trade deals – than the fate of small people. After Snoke told him the story of his grandfather’s life, Kylo never understood one thing: how Qui-Gon Jinn, the noble Jedi Knight, could have taken Anakin away from Tatooine but left his mother to linger there as a slave, which ultimately led to her death and triggered Anakin’s slide to the dark side.

“Enough for today,” Kylo says after more than half an hour of combat training. By now Saar-Yen-Dii is panting, sweaty and flustered, but she looks more cheerful than usual. Almost playful.

“Go have your shower and breakfast. And don’t eat alone in your room. Go to the mess hall and talk to the others.”

“I will, master. I will just walk a bit first. I like walking here. It’s a nice world.”

“A nice world?” Kylo scoffs. “There’s nothing but sand here. And it’s blistering hot for most of the time.”

“I like it,” she smiles and trots away in the direction of the canyon. Whatever. Cereans have a special connection to nature, and she has been living on a starship for months now. She needs some fresh air. He needed it, too.

He will go back to his room now, take a shower, eat something and prepare for the whole day of negotiations. Today they will start talking about the conditions for a possible deal. He needs to get it done, before he can tackle the real threat. First, the peace treaty, the reconciliation with his mother – excruciating as it is – and closure. Closure after the war, brutality and mutual hatred. Closure after Rey.

She shouldn’t have left him.

Of course, had she stayed, the Palpatine issue would still have come up, but everything else would be easier. They wanted the same thing, essentially: a galaxy where injustice had no place and the weakest didn’t have to suffer. And yet, when he offered her a way to work on it together, she ran away. She even had the nerve to expect he would run away with her. Did she stop to think what would have happened if he had left the Order after Snoke’s death? Does she think the Order would have magically disappeared and the galaxy would flourish in peace and prosperity? No, someone else would have taken power, someone _worse_, such as Hux. Or the Order would have imploded because of all the in-fighting, there would be a power vacuum, and who does she think would fill it? The good guys, whoever they are?

It is beyond him how Rey cannot see that he had to stay, whether he wanted to or not – and he _did _want to. Because someone has to do this fucking job. Hux as a Supreme Leader would have hunted the Resistance to the edges of the galaxy, he would have ruled by terror, encouraged the gangs, and then blown up a few planets for good measure. But Rey is so short sighted, so ignorant.

She should have stayed. She said she would help him. He counted on her help. It’s not a job for one person. And it wouldn’t be so painful if he were not alone. Together, they could be –

He thought he was over it. Over her. It was but a fantasy, created on the basis of a few brief conversations, one touch of hands, and one instance when they fought on the same side –

_Not just on the same side, but together, in sync, as if they had done that all their life. _

For one year, Kylo did his best to keep their bond and his mind closed to Rey – to protect himself from her, and then also to protect her from Palpatine. He failed on both counts. He treated her abominably on the very first day here on Pasaana. He was furious, hurt and offended, when she touched him in such a needy way, as if the last year hadn’t happened, as if she hadn’t closed the door of his father’s ship in his face when he _knelt_ before her like a miserable wretch, silently begging her to come back. After all that, she creeps back and expects to talk, she asks him how he is, she _gropes_ him! He needed to do something terrible to her, so that she stopped hoping, chatting and dreaming. He wanted to be free from her stifling expectations. He told her as much –

– And then, her arms around his neck last night. They were connected by the bond but he felt her warm body against him as if she were really in his bed. He should have pushed her away again, and then she would finally have given up, but he wasn’t strong enough. He couldn’t do it. She was snuggling in against him, her mouth mere milimetres from his neck, her hair was down and she wore sleeping clothes. She was so unprepared, so defenceless, and he just – couldn’t do it.

He knows she might pay for that moment of their mutual weakness with her life, if she still insists on helping him. But once he pulled her to him, there was no going back. He couldn’t stop even if he tried. The bond unfurled and Rey’s emotions permeated him almost as if they were his own: her relief, her bliss, the pleasure she derived from their physical proximity. She fell asleep in his arms, and later, _much later_, when the connection started fading, he lay her in bed under the covers. One year ago, he dreamt desperately of something like that. Of that and of more.

She called him by his chosen name, the name of a monster. She said that she didn’t want him to die, that she cared for him. It would have been perfectly cruel to reject her after that, so he should have done precisely that. It was a logical thing to do, given their history. The day before, he brutally humiliated her and slammed her to the ground. In the morning, he fought her and kicked her to the ground again. The two of them kept screaming at each other, she threw sand in his face – and all this just in the first two days on Pasaana. One year ago she split his face and shoulder in two on Starkiller, while he ordered to shoot her ship down and vowed to destroy her on Crait. They are bad for each other. They can’t be together for long without hurting each other. It’s toxic, it’s not a good idea. It was all a mistake. He told her as much – 

– And yet, the bond between them is evolving. Its current runs deeper and deeper, it weaves itself into Kylo’s blood. He can hear Rey in his mind now. Their emotions for each other are undeniably strong. He thought pushing her away would save his heart and save her life, but she won’t be discouraged or intimidated. She endures the worst he has in stock for her, she gives him her worst in return, and yet, somehow, they find their way back to each other again and again.

Never before in his life had he felt like he did last night when he held her in his arms. He doesn’t have the words to describe it. It was extreme bliss mixed with raw pain, it made his skin prickle and his eyes burn. He wanted it to never end.

He will remember that feeling well because it will not happen again. Not once she finds out what he has done. She won’t look at him anymore after that, and so much the better for her.

* * *

That night, two months ago, a few days after the departure of his Knights for the Unknown Regions, Kylo’s little droid woke him up. D’ohn, one of his Knights, an engineer, built him that contraption. The Knights had been warning Kylo of a possible coup for some time. They were loyal to him; not his friends or anything like that, but Kylo was pretty sure they wouldn’t make a move against him and wouldn’t side with his enemies. Hux hated them, they hated Hux, and perhaps it was obvious Hux would try something after the Knights departed and Kylo was left alone.

But he didn’t expect it would happen so fast. It must have been in the works for some time and they only waited for an opportunity.

The small droid, hidden away behind a row of books on Kylo’s shelf, had sensors detecting toxic substances in the air. In the middle of the night, it woke Kylo up as a poisonous but odorless gas started being pumped through the vents into his bedroom. It was clever of Hux to lead with something like that rather than to attempt a direct confrontation or an explosion. The Force would likely have alerted Kylo to any of those, but in his sleep, and attacked with a poisonous chemical substance, he was vulnerable. The gas was mixed with drugs which were supposed to cloud his senses and make it even more difficult for him to wake up in time before the gas killed him.

When the droid started emitting shrill sounds, Kylo jumped out of bed and called his helmet to him with the Force. Protected from the gas by the ventilation system in the mask, he started throwing his clothes on hastily when the door to his quarters exploded, blaster fire rained on him and thermal detonators got thrown inside. Whoever organized this, they must have detected motion in his bedroom – perhaps they had cameras hidden there – and decided to pass to plan B. Kylo raised a Force shield in front of him and pushed back with a blast that killed everyone who entered his quarters.

These were only troopers. There were no officers. He needed to get out of there because this room was becoming a hot trap.

As he burst into the corridor, speaking into his comlink and calling for reinforcements, another group came at him from around the corner with explosives and flame throwers. He managed to fight back and deflect until help arrived, and then a battle started. It wasn’t just on the _Finalizer_. The conspiracy ran deeper and soon clashes broke out on all the Order’s starships.

Within two hours, it was over as Kylo and his supporters got an upper hand on the _Finalizer_. By then, Kylo was bathed in blood – very little of it his own – and seething with anger. He executed two of the high-ranking officers, including Allegiant General Pryde, live on the holoconference mode for the whole of the Order to see. A quick series of promotions and demotions ensued, as well as a chain of executions on all his ships.

Hux spent all that time on the floor of the _Finalizer_’s bridge. Forced to his knees and kept in restraints, his broken nose still bleeding, he was intermittently sobbing and screaming in rage. Once all was over, Kylo seized him by the collar of his greatcoat and dragged him, writhing in his grasp, to the corridor.

* * *

“Where are you taking me, Ren?” Hux choked out, pointlessly clawing at the hand gripping his coat behind his neck. “Why don’t you just get it over with? Why don’t you chop my head off like you did with the others?”

Kylo was silent.

He was silent the whole way as Hux first questioned and cursed him, then screamed as Kylo tore into his mind, ripping the last elements of the conspiracy from him: the names of all the traitors, inside and outside the Order, some of them in criminal syndicates and corrupted megacorporations, the secret deals Hux had struck with them, and even his plans to get in touch with the Resistance and offer them a deal to get rid of Kylo.

It certainly wasn’t the first time Kylo got what he wanted out of a prisoner. This time, however, once he had all the information he needed, he didn’t stop.

On that day, he learnt that the immersion in the dark side of the Force should not be measured by the intensity of anger or suffering. Real darkness was a complete lack of feeling, the insensitivity, the numbness in which the only sensation was an occasional flash of pleasure derived from cruelty. Now, two months later, the memory of Hux’s agonizing screams still wakes Kylo up in the middle of the night. Hux’s eyes, full of indescribable pain and torment, have burnt a hole under Kylo’s skull.

But on that day, as he dragged Hux slowly along the corridors of his flagship, the tendrils of the Force ripping through Hux’s mind and body like a lightning, Kylo didn’t feel anything. Gradually, slowly, Hux’s skin was being torn from his muscles, his internal organs were being liquefied, his bones crushed, his guts twisted. In the end, he couldn’t even scream anymore. He only moaned and grunted as the bloodied and increasingly shapeless mass of his body bounced on the joints between the durasteel panels of the floor.

In the brig, Kylo threw him into a cell. Free at last, Hux remained where his body hit the ground, unable to move, his eyes rolling back in his head with pain.

“Kill me,” he croaked as Kylo turned around and headed for the exit. “Just kill me, Ren.”

“Do not give him anything,” Kylo said to the two troopers guarding the prison who, on seeing him, had clung to the walls in terror. “No water, no painkillers, no food. Do not dare to shoot him or I’ll do to you what I did to him. Stop him from killing himself if he tries to.”

He went back to the bridge, barking orders. His allies, those who fought and killed by his side minutes earlier, took one look at him and stepped aside. As he stood by the viewport, staring into space and listening to Captain Peavey’s situation report, a stony silence reigned over the area despite tens of officers and troopers being present. It is in silence that Kylo, covered in blood from head to toe, delivered another holo message to his troops all over the galaxy: the situation was under control and he showed his mercy to the traitors, dispatching most of them quickly. From now on, those who dared to undermine his leadership would die a slow and painful death, just like the former General Hux, whose insides were now pouring out of his body onto the _Finalizer_’s brig’s floor.

Nobody had anything to say after that.

It is only after Kylo dragged himself back to his quarters that he looked into the mirror. He already knew what he would see there. He guessed it from the bewilderment and panic in people’s faces as they glanced at him. The fiery yellow eyes, with a sickly red rim, the eyes of a mad and hungry animal, burnt in his ashen face. He stared at his reflection for long minutes. Blood was smeared on his cheek, his clothes were torn, but he didn’t notice that. His heart raced so fast he could hardly breathe. He knew something irreversible had happened.

But even then, he didn’t feel a thing.

It occurred to him then that hadn’t really known darkness before. He had reached for it but had never truly experienced it. Not like that. Snoke had been right – Kylo had been too weak, he had too much of his father’s heart.

Not any more.

He threw his clothes into the slot of the trash compactor and went to bed, naked and dirty. It was seven o’clock in the morning; he lay on his back, his eyes wide open, watching the stars passing by outside his viewport. His mind was not his own; he didn’t know it, or he was getting to know it only then for the first time.

At eleven o’clock his comlink buzzed and the captain of the troopers’ unit stationed in the brig informed him that the traitor had just breathed his last after four hours of agony. Kylo told the captain to throw Hux’s body out through the airlock, switched his comlink off and went to sleep. He woke up only in the evening and went to the refresher. But instead of taking a shower, he threw up. He hadn’t eaten anything since the previous evening, yet he couldn’t stop vomiting. In the end he passed out on the refresher’s floor and when he came to, his eyes looked normal.

But nothing was ever normal again after that.

Two days later, the nightmares and the visions started. Through deep Darkness, the spectre of the Emperor found him.

* * *

The savagery and the will to inflict pain returned in a flash on Pasaana when Rey crept upon him from behind and snaked her arms around him. She had betrayed him; she had humiliated and abandoned him, left him for dead on a burning wreck of a ship. He was going to make her pay for that.

As he shoved his hand between her legs and struck her down, he fed on her fear and shock. _He wanted to end her. _The impulse was irrational and very hard to control. For a short moment, Kylo felt the exhilaration Snoke must have experienced as he held Rey in a Force grip on her knees in the throne room, threatening to kill her by the cruelest stroke. For a short moment, he was like Snoke, or worse than Snoke. It was a flash, he blinked, and it went away. But the cold tendrils of darkness closed around his heart again, leaving terror in their wake.

After he attacked her, Rey ran away and he didn’t pursue her. It wasn’t necessary. Finally, he really became a monster, an evil automaton, and she witnessed his transformation. She might still not accept it, she might prefer to lie to herself, but Kylo knows it will not be the last time – this will happen to him again, and best if she isn’t around then. Soon she’ll realise that too, and then she won’t put her arms around his neck anymore. She will understand why he needs to go confront Palpatine alone and why she needs to stay away from him.

It is better like that.

In his room in the Pasaana shelter, tired from his morning combat session with Saar-Yen-Dii after a sleepless night, Kylo thinks wearily that he could do with a few hours of sleep before the negotiations. There is unfortunately no time. Perhaps if he tried to sleep during the day, he would be less prone to nightmares –

Last night, after the connection between them faded out, he closed his eyes and tried to conjure the memory of Rey’s warm embrace, but all he could see under his eyelids was Hux’s bruised and swollen face, Hux’s body spread on the floor of the brig in a puddle of blood, his arms and legs twisted at horribly unnatural angles. It was the same image Kylo had seen every night since the coup as he desperately tried to get some sleep.

And then, when he finally managed to drift off, there was only darkness. And in it, the cackling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you miss Kylo and Rey's interaction, next time there will be plenty of it, I promise.
> 
> Cereans are canon - [here's more about them](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Cerean)
> 
> As usual, every piece of feedback will be cherished and every comment will get a reply. Thank you very much for reading - I hope you've enjoyed today's chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear all, thank you so much for all the kudos, bookmarks, subscriptions and comments. It makes my day and my week every time. I hope you’ll like today’s instalment, too.

“A Senate,” Leia Organa states firmly. “With a fair representation from across the galaxy. Perhaps it could be smaller than the Republic Senate, with different voting and majority rules, to speed up decision making –”

“Absolutely not,” Kylo utters through clenched teeth. This is his bottom line. “The most ineffective, corrupted, useless institution, ridden by scandals, on the payroll of criminal lobbyists. Full of disgusting, entitled and _rotten_ people. No more. There won’t be a Senate in the new galaxy.”

Loud arguing starts around the negotiation table. Dameron and FN-2187 get agitated, Kylo’s officers raise their voices as they respond. Rey, standing again behind his mother’s chair – _why can’t she just sit at the table? – _frowns. She looks apprehensive.

Kylo is exhausted. The sleepless night, the morning training, the bad memories – and here he is, good for a few hours of tough negotiations over a new deal. He’s had three cups of caf already and it isn’t helping, it only makes him feel more on edge.

His mother gazes at him calmly. She’s the only one in this room who doesn’t succumb to the overall negative excitement. She and Rey, but Rey isn’t contributing very much.

“Do you have a better idea, Ben?” Leia asks in a level voice, raising her hand and silencing immediately the rest of the Resistance delegation. Kylo watches with fascination how effortlessly this small, old and tired-looking woman exerts authority. She doesn’t need Force-choking, threats or imposing looks. They just obey. Well, that may work with thirty people – or however numerous they are now, a few hundred? – but not with millions scattered all over the galaxy. It’s that, or maybe she knows one or two things about leadership Kylo has yet to learn.

“We should change the whole concept of galactic government, not just the structure,” Kylo says. “We need to look at what decisions should be taken at galactic level. Perhaps the Republic’s Senate regulated too much. We could design a leaner but stronger and more effective central level, and then leave more autonomy to individual systems and worlds.”

“Leaving more autonomy to anyone is certainly not what I expected to hear from you,” Dameron remarks lightly. Kylo frowns; he doesn’t appreciate their little piques. “But you like to talk about organized crime. So how do you want to get rid of it if you leave so much autonomy to the worlds?”

“Fighting organized crime is my top priority. This should be done at the central level. It would be one of the main things we would put our resources into.”

“Which means?”

“The First Order could become a peacekeeping force of the galaxy,” Kylo says and takes a deep breath. He has thought about it so many times. He anticipated his mother’s objections to the absence of Senate, and he knows that what he’s just said will be equally frowned upon. They will suspect him of ulterior motives.

“It could also have a strong law enforcement function,” he adds. “We could build a galactic alliance around it. Those who adhere would have to agree to our rules and would receive protection in return. Their representatives would take part in decision making. But it doesn’t mean every world or system should send someone to sit on the assembly. The central governing body needs to be small. A Council, possibly with rotating membership.”

“How small?” the ever-practical Leia asks, while Dameron interjects:

“So what would actually change? The Order would still be the most powerful player in the galaxy. How is that peacekeeping?”

“And what would you like me to do with the Order?” Kylo barks. “Dissolve it? Blow up my ships one by one, or let you do it? Dismiss all my troops and release them into nature? Would that satisfy _your_ idea of peacekeeping? We have an enormous military force at our disposal. You want me to waste it, rather than use it? How would such a deal be beneficial to the Order?”

“That’s the problem, in a nutshell,” Dameron agrees. “I say, the Order cannot be trusted. It’s too powerful. If we leave it an important role, it will likely abuse it. And without an important role for the Order, there is no deal with you. So we’re back to square one.”

“The galaxy _needs_ the Order. It’s not about keeping me or my people happy. Do you seriously think going back to the Republic’s ways is a better solution?

“I’m not saying that. I agree things have to change. But the Order isn’t a good solution, either.”

“Answer me, Ben,” Leia reminds him delicately, which at least has the benefit of shutting Dameron up temporarily. “What about this Council?”

“Twenty, thirty people,” Kylo states. “Representing all races of sentient beings, and all galactic clusters.”

“Thirty people to represent the whole galaxy?” Commander D’Acy, sitting on Leia’s left, repeats slowly. “That’s impossible. We cannot accept that.”

“Given the very divergent backgrounds and interests in the galaxy, we think this is the absolute maximum of people with whom we can reach any agreement on important issues, and within acceptable deadlines,” says General Daere, one of Kylo’s most trusted officers since the coup. Two months ago, Daere, a thirty-six-year-old Keshiri woman in the rank of Major on the star destroyer _Sliver_, disobeyed her commanding officer, who joined Hux’s faction, and led a battalion of stormtroopers in a fierce battle for the control of the ship. She came out victorious and, when the _Sliver _reported back to the _Finalizer_ announcing the end of the revolt, it was Daere, covered in cuts and bruises, who spoke on holo to Kylo. He made her a General on the spot and two months later invited her to attend the negotiations with him.

And now, she’s making a good point. Even Leia is silent for a moment, probably remembering the hell it was to agree on anything in the Republic Senate. But she shakes her head.

“Commander D’Acy is right,” she says. “You might have a point about the speed and effectiveness, General Daere. But nobody will join your alliance if they cannot be properly represented in the main decision-making body.”

“Think how much cheaper a small assembly would be,” Kylo points out. “The Senate was literally a black hole into which public money disappeared. This money could go to building new hyperspace lanes, protecting trade routes, all kinds of research and public works. Building infrastructure on underdeveloped worlds, improving agriculture –”

“And maintaining your enormous fleet, the so-called peacebuilding force,” FN-2187 comments sarcastically.

Kylo briefly contemplates Force-choking the traitor who has the nerve to speak like this in his presence. Why is this former stormtrooper even here? What does he know? He has no strategic insight, no knowledge of the galaxy, he’s just with the Resistance for the ride because he has nowhere else to go.

Rey sighs. She and Kylo haven’t talked since last night – not since she fell asleep in his arms – and she guards her thoughts today, not that he would presume to pry. But she keeps looking at him; she is standing just opposite him, behind the chairs of the Resistance delegation, so nobody on her side can see that she is watching Kylo.

“So, if I understand correctly,” she speaks and everyone turns to her, “before you know what kind of structure you need, a Senate, a Council, or something else, you have to look at the decisions it will take. You need to look at every single matter the Senate legislated on and decide where it should go now – to the central or to the local level. That takes time. And then, you will have to check if all your potential allies agree with that approach. Right?”

“It might take time, but it needs to be done. You don’t design a new order in the galaxy in a few days,” Kylo says. He can’t stop himself. _And you could have been part of designing that new order already one year ago. We could have had peace much earlier. We could have started working earlier._

_Don’t you dare to blame this on me, _she shoots back. _You could have offered to open peace negotiations at any time. You do not need me to babysit you for that._

“This is exactly what I’m saying,” she resumes. “It’s not a matter of a few days of negotiations, and it cannot be decided just between you and us. But we have no time to negotiate for ever. We can’t start asking people now what government structure they prefer and what decisions it should take. We have a bigger problem!”

She comes to the table and leans forward, placing her hands on the surface.

“Right now, we should be looking for allies all over the galaxy to join us against Palpatine,” she says fiercely. “And not wonder how many members your Council or your Senate will have! Can’t we just agree on the principle of peace and cooperation, and come back to it once we have got rid of the evil guy who might be planning to blow us all up with a secret superweapon?”

“We are precisely trying to agree on the principle,” Leia replies. “As soon as we do, I’m willing to postpone discussing the details and focus on the new threat. But it seems it will be very difficult to agree on any common principle here.”

Rey straightens up and looks into Kylo’s eyes.

_Tell them_.

_Tell them what?_

_Tell them what you have been doing for the past year. What you told me yesterday. In detail. About the slaves, the stormtroopers, the gangs. _

_And how will that help us agree on the number of people in the Council?_

_Once they hear you’re working towards the same goal as they are, it will be easier to agree on other things. They will learn to trust you and will listen to your ideas about government._

“Perhaps we started from the wrong end,” Kylo says, looking at Leia who, he realizes now, is trying to help him. He just needs to give her something. Something else than the “no Senate” line which instantly raises a red flag with the Resistance.

“General Daere, Admiral Croos. Talk us through the Castilon file.”

* * *

An hour later they have been through multiple presentations. The dismantlement of the Guavian Death Gang, following the destruction of a secret weapon factory on Castilon and the hunt after the members of the gang across the galaxy. The takeover of three megacorporations on Bothawui that sourced slave labour from camps operated by criminal syndicates. The conservation and reconstruction work on Jelucan, heavily polluted since the Galactic Civil War. The construction of schools on Dantooine, promised by the Order long ago in exchange for a large share of the planet’s agricultural crops but never delivered. The new conditions for stormtroopers, with a transparent recruitment scheme, a changed curriculum in the academies, and the right to maintain normal connections with family and friends. Countless questions have been asked, further examples have been offered and thoroughly discussed.

“The Order is the best placed in the galaxy to deal with such big challenges,” Kylo resumes after the presentations are finished. “But yes, running its operations costs money.”

“So what is your current arrangement with the worlds the Order governs? Voluntary contributions?” Dameron asks.

“Not voluntary. We’re not a charity. We tax them, though usually it takes the form of an exchange in kind – their resources in return for our services and protection.”

“Such exchange was always supposed to be the rule on First Order-governed worlds, only it wasn’t,” FN speaks. “In reality, the Order took everything and didn’t give anything valuable in return, it allowed the gangs to do whatever they wanted, and kidnapped children for the stormtrooper programme.”

“We’ve just shown you it’s not like this anymore,” Admiral Croos says. He’s an older Imperial officer, an honourable type, whom Kylo trusted the moment he spoke to him for the first time just after he became the Supreme Leader. When it came to choosing sides at the time of the coup, Croos didn’t disappoint. “We offer everyone fair deals now. On Jelucan, for example, we asked for access to the mineral deposits on one of their uninhabited moons. Typically, we’re talking of underdeveloped worlds that have no infrastructure or expertise to exploit their resources, and if they’re left on their own they fall prey to gangs and corporations, which impose hard deals.”

“We don’t operate by force anymore,” Kylo says. “But they have to accept our conditions and rules, such as the abolition of slavery. We establish a governor and at least one outpost on every world. Those who were coerced into accepting the Order’s presence under previous leadership, have now been given a choice. If they don’t want us there anymore, we leave and they’re on their own. So far, hardly any have asked us to leave, and many new ones have signed agreements with us.”

“Just so we are clear, this might be a good business model in the Outer Rim,” Leia remarks. “But not in the Core Worlds.”

“This is why so many worlds in the Mid and Outer Rim are under the Order now,” Kylo agrees. “But in terms of peacekeeping, we have something to offer to the developed worlds, too. Everyone wants to get rid of the gangs from the galaxy, and for that you need one strong army and one law enforcement system. It can’t be done with regional deals and makeshift cooperation.”

“What about the joint response to the new threat, Ben?” Leia asks. “Surely you expect some help from all those potential allies?”

“For now, as I said from the beginning, I only expect a ceasefire between you and us. Until I deal with Palpatine.”

“Until _we_ deal with Palpatine,” Rey interrupts coolly, earning many surprised looks.

“You don’t even know if that threat is real,” FN starts again.

“It’s real,” Rey says calmly, back to leaning nonchalantly against the wall. “Kylo Ren told you about his visions. I have them, too. Once this negotiation is over, he and I will start training together, preparing for the war.”

What? Kylo almost spits out his water. What the hell? Did she plan this all along, to drop this bomb in the middle of the meeting without a warning? He never promised her that. They never discussed it!

He glares daggers at her, but nobody notices because the room erupts in shouting again. It’s mostly the Resistance; his own people are too well trained and disciplined to express their surprise or disagreement so vehemently.

Leia sighs.

“We need to allow the Force users to do their thing,” she reminds her troops. “Although I admit this comes as a surprise. Rey, I expect you’ll walk us through whatever plan you have agreed on together.”

“I will,” Rey promises, glaring back at Kylo, as if she was daring him to call her bluff. He’s seething but doesn’t say anything.

“I think we could all do with a break,” Leia says, rising from her chair.

* * *

“Kylo Ren!”

Kylo turns around to check who is calling him. He left the negotiation tent and was on his way to his shuttle, just to stay away from all these people a little bit. As taking a walk outside is impossible in this midday heat, he has resolved to barricade himself in his quarters on his ship, where he’s sure he won’t be disturbed.

Incredibly, it’s FN-2187 who wants to speak with him. Kylo is so surprised he remains planted there, rather than ignore the annoying wretch and continue walking.

“I don’t trust you,” the traitor blurts out, straight to the point. He comes close to Kylo and stares at him defiantly.

Kylo stares back.

“I don’t buy the story of you teaming up with Rey,” FN says angrily. “This is not what you do. In all my time at the Order, you never had any partner or friend. Everyone was afraid of you. And now I’m supposed to believe you and Rey will work together? What is it that you want from her?”

“Believe what you want. This is between me and Rey.”

“I am Rey’s friend,” FN hisses. “And I know this: you’re manipulating her. Things just don’t add up.”

“What things?”

“Like why was she on the _Supremacy_ in the first place?” FN explodes. “And why did you have to wait for her before you killed Snoke – you wanted her to watch, or what? Then you let her go but a moment later you descended upon Crait to kill her? _That just doesn’t make any sense._ What really happened there?”

“Why don’t you ask Rey?!” Kylo hisses, bringing his face closer to the traitor’s so that the other man flinches, even if he suppresses his reaction and tries to hide his fear. “I hear she’s your friend. Must be a strange friendship if you need to ask such questions to the enemy.”

“You’ve done something to her,” FN insists angrily. “This is why she’s not telling us everything. And now she has the same visions as you? Who’s to tell me it’s not you who gives her these visions, to make her believe in your little story?”

“What’s going on here?” Rey asks in a slightly panicked voice, appearing out of nowhere behind FN, her eyes darting between the two of them.

“Rey, you can’t be serious about training with him!” FN argues, glaring at Kylo all along. “Don’t you remember what he was like on Starkiller, on Crait? How he pursued us? He almost killed both you and me! He acted like he was insane –”

“Finn, things have changed since then,” Rey says, placing her hand on the traitor’s arm, but she appears slightly subdued, as if she was – ashamed? Kylo grits his teeth. Fine. He doesn’t need to see or hear any more. He hasn’t asked for any of it. She offered him help, she told everyone about the training, without even asking him first –

“Look at this,” the traitor bellows and starts to – what, undress? He sheds his leather jacket – _he must have been baking in that thin_g – and it looks like he’s going to take his shirt off next.

“Finn, stop,” Rey begs, looking very sad, and Kylo could just _kill the bloody lunatic and end this _–

“Look what you did to me,” FN yells at him. He’s shirtless now and he turns his back to Kylo. A long and ugly scar runs from his neck to the bottom of his spine, as if his body had been split in two.

“I still have nightmares about that night,” he continues, turning around again and putting his clothes back on furiously. “And why? What had I done to you? What had Rey done? We saw you murder your father in cold blood, and you just wanted to kill the witnesses, so that nobody knows what a rotten piece of shit you are –”

Kylo lunges at him and grabs him by the throat, but he’s so furious that FN, while in his grasp, manages to distract him for a moment and punch him in the stomach. It doesn’t hurt; Kylo is trained against things like that, but the traitor shouldn’t have managed to land a blow.

“No, Kylo, no!” Rey shrieks, throwing herself between them and trying to wrestle with Kylo as FN wheezes and writhes. She looks as if she could burst out crying at any moment. Kylo releases the traitor and shoves him away violently. FN staggers and almost falls, but Rey grabs his arm and steadies him.

“Don’t go anywhere with him, Rey,” the idiot shouts and puts his hand protectively on her shoulder, _as if she needed his fucking protection_. “It’s a trap. How do you know he’s not plotting with Palpatine against you? What guarantee do you have he’s actually _on your side_? He might be doing nice things now, but once he feels threatened, he will lash out, like he did on Starkiller, like he has done just now, you will see –”

“You don’t know everything, Finn,” Rey replies in a small voice. She is shattered and Kylo is livid. She didn’t need to see this. The traitor, who is trying to provoke him and sabotage the negotiations, didn’t have to make such a scene. By now, a small crowd of Resistance people and Kylo’s own troopers has gathered, watching them anxiously from a distance. At least his mother is not with them –

“So why don’t you tell me? I am your best friend. Why are you protecting this monster, Rey? How can you trust him? He’s seeking his own advantage. This is what this peace treaty is to him! And then he will use you, like he used you already to get rid of Snoke, and when he doesn’t need you anymore, he’ll crush you –”

These are the words Han Solo uttered to Kylo seconds before his death. Han Solo spoke about Snoke, and now this asshole, this traitor here, is warning Rey against Kylo using the exact same expressions, the same images. Is he doing it on purpose, did he hear what Han Solo said on that night? Impossible. It’s not that. It’s just that everyone in the Resistance must think Kylo is like Snoke.

Rey glances at Kylo furtively. She looks spooked and his chest tightens with pain – because of his father, because of how FN spoke about it, because of the fear and perhaps even suspicion in Rey’s eyes. She must be regretting now her last night’s weakness, when she promised to help Kylo and told him yet again that he was not alone.

He should say something, but what? Deny the accusations? Defend himself? Before FN? It’s a wasted effort, and does he even care what a former stormtrooper, a defector, thinks of him? He’s opened this negotiation to get these people off his back and not to become friends with them.

Rey and FN are talking in hushed voices, then the traitor gives Kylo a last deadly look and leaves. It has to be acknowledged that he does not lack courage. Why is he so brave and determined? Is he in love with Rey? Is she in love with him?

Kylo feels bile rise to his throat; he is about to turn around and walk away, but Rey is coming to him now. She stops in front of him and for a moment neither of them says anything.

“He is simply worried about me,” Rey explains hesitatingly. “Do you mind if I tell him more? About the bond? I feel he would understand better if he knew.”

“He’s your friend, Rey. You can tell him whatever you want about your life. But if you share his doubts, you should reconsider your offer to help me.”

She is silent.

“I ask myself questions,” she admits. “It’s normal, isn’t it? We have had such a difficult history… But my offer stands.”

“We should have discussed it before you told them,” Kylo says sharply.

“Before I told them we’d be training together?”

“Yes. You and I have never talked about it. I have never agreed to that.”

“I’m sorry. I felt we needed to show we had a plan. To reassure them. I improvised, and it backfired. I misjudged the situation.”

Yes, she bloody did. It didn’t reassure the Resistance at all; on the contrary. The bitter reproach is on the tip of Kylo’s tongue but he stops himself.

There is a moment of awkward silence. A thousand questions cross Kylo’s mind, all of them inappropriate. Are you in love with the traitor? Are you going to tell him about the night on Ahch-To when we touched hands? And about last night? Are you afraid I will side with Palpatine against you? What is the dream you don’t want to tell me about? Do you think I am a rotten piece of shit you need to fix because that’s your role in the peace process and if you don’t, the galaxy will suffer? Do you just pity me?

“Did you know some of your troopers here were Finn’s former friends?” Rey asks suddenly.

“Yes. I asked for volunteers, they volunteered. I wanted to know why, and they told me.”

“So you didn’t choose them yourself? You didn’t bring them here on purpose?”

“Why? To make FN forgive me?” Kylo sneers. “I’m not that considerate or sentimental, Rey. You should know that already.”

He hates his reply as soon as the words leave his mouth but it’s too late, and he can’t think of anything else to say that would remove the bitter aftertaste of the incident. The sun is relentless, the wind is picking up, sending little grains of sand in their faces, and she’s still standing in front of him, fidgeting, nervous, full of good will. He feels like the biggest failure in the galaxy.

“I thought maybe we could see this holocron together during the break,” Rey suggests. There is an edge of despair to her voice.

“No. I am in no mood for looking at Sith holocrons now, Rey.”

He’s in the mood for going to his training room on the _Finalizer_ and slicing through a hundred or so combat droids. Or at least for screaming out loud where nobody could hear him.

* * *

It is late and Rey is almost asleep when the air changes around her and she can feel his presence in her bed again, just like yesterday. She’s lying on her left side, close to the bed’s edge, and he materializes behind her, on the side of the bed that is adjacent to the wall.

“Hello,” Rey murmurs sleepily, without turning around. “I was just nodding off.”

“Don’t mind me then.”

They’re lying in silence for a few moments but now that he’s here, Rey finds that sleep eludes her.

“I thought it was good today,” she starts. “Even though you had this… disagreement with Finn. But overall the meeting went well, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“It looks like we will be able to come to an understanding.”

“Yes.”

“And then we can finally deal with the real problem.”

Silence. He is probably still not comfortable with the idea of them doing it together.

“I have just got a message from Chewie,” Rey tries another subject, reaching for her datapad lying on the bedside table.

Silence again.

“Do you want to know what he’s saying?”

“No,” Kylo replies evenly from behind her back.

“Why not? Because he shot you?”

Kylo laughs bitterly.

“Because he shot me?” he repeats. “No. _Because I deserved to be shot_. But perhaps I don’t need to hear how much yet another person hates me. I’ve had my dose today.”

“Chewie doesn’t hate you,” Rey reaches behind her with the datapad so that he can read the message, but he doesn’t take it. “He has been asking about you repeatedly. What you look like, whether you are healthy, whether the talks are going well. He’s still in so much pain, but he cares about you.”

“Stop, Rey,” Kylo whispers.

Rey slowly turns onto her other side to face him.

He’s wearing a loose grey top with long sleeves. His hair is splayed on the pillow and his deep brown eyes look as vulnerable as in the throne room when he asked her to join him and was afraid to be rejected and hurt again.

“I want to know about the yellow eyes,” Rey says. “I need to know what’s happened to you.”

He sighs wearily and runs his hand through his hair. She has no idea how he keeps it so shiny and luscious and soft-looking. Well, she doesn’t really know if it’s soft. She has never touched it –

“I never said something actually happened. You keep asking what’s wrong, as if an evil Sith trying to take over the galaxy was not enough.”

“I feel there’s something else. Something personal. If you don’t want to speak about it, show me through the bond.”

“I don’t want you to see this, Rey.”

“You’re ashamed,” Rey states softly. They’re both lying on their sides now, facing each other, and he gazes at her sadly but earnestly. “You did something you’re so ashamed of that you don’t want me to see it?”

“I did something evil.”

“You killed someone? An innocent?”

“No. I killed someone who wasn’t innocent and deserved to die. That’s not the problem.”

“So what is?”

“I took my time. I enjoyed it. This had never happened before. I always favoured a clean and quick kill. I had no problem killing if it needed to be done, but it was never a pleasure. This time…”

He looks away.

“It was sick,” he admits. “Sadistic. It was all I thought I wasn’t. And then it turned out I was precisely that.”

“Is this when your eyes turned yellow for the first time?”

“Yes.”

“And after that?”

“Just once,” Kylo replies, looking at her again. “Just once, with you. Two days ago.”

She’s chilled by the implication of it. She understands now what bothers him.

“You’re afraid you’ll hurt me. That’s why you don’t want me to come with you. You don’t trust yourself.”

“You have no idea how it feels. It was… vicious.”

Rey swallows. It did feel vicious when he attacked her. Should she be afraid of him? She probably should, but she isn’t. She shouldn’t let him anywhere near her, and yet here he is, lying next to her in her bed.

“You need to show me what started it. You get angry when I listen to what Finn says about you, but you refuse to tell me the truth.”

“Who said I got angry? You can listen to your friend if you want to. It’s none of my business.”

“Stop that. I know how you felt. It practically screamed at me through the bond.”

This silences him for a long moment.

“You will loathe me when you see it,” he says in the end.

“I told you I want to accept you as you are. I can’t do it if you hide things from me. Show me.”

She takes his hand under the duvet, closes her eyes and opens her mind to him.

* * *

Rey lets go of his hand and jumps out of the bed. She runs to the refresher and bends over the toilet bowl. For a second, she thought she would throw up. But she takes deep breaths, opens the tap above the sink, drinks some water, and it gets better.

It was monstrous.

She didn’t even know one could use the Force in that way. To dissect someone’s body from within, while keeping them conscious and making them suffer. She wouldn’t know how to do it. Fortunately.

And each of these injuries, Kylo inflicted deliberately. One after another, slowly, methodically, mercilessly. Not even Hux, who erased a whole planetary system from the galaxy, deserved that. No one deserves something like that.

But the most terrifying thing was being in Kylo’s mind, feeling what he felt, that is to say nothing. When he fought to crush the revolt on board the _Finalizer_, livid and bloodthirsty, she understood. It wasn’t pleasant to watch but she shared his indignation, his anger, his wish to defend himself, his fury at being betrayed by his own people. The executions, she flinched but understood. They committed high treason. They would have tried again.

_But that_…

She saw his reflection when he stared at the mirror back in his quarters. Blood on his face, the mad yellow eyes.

He was right, she hated what she saw. And Finn was right. Kylo is a monster, he is still a monster, perhaps he is even more of a monster now than ever before.

* * *

She can’t stay in the refresher forever. She almost hopes the connection will have faded out but when she returns to her bedroom, Kylo is still there, lying on his back in bed, staring at the ceiling.

He gives her one look and turns away towards the wall.

_I told you._

Rey watches his big body curl under her duvet and sighs. She can’t tell him to leave now. He warned her, and she promised him to try.

She slides into the sheets next to him and touches his elbow.

“It’s easier to talk if I can see your face.”

He makes a grumpy sound but slowly turns back to her. It doesn’t help that he is so beautiful like this, despondent and melancholy, looking down and away from her, his eyes shielded by his long eyelashes.

“I’m sorry this has happened to you,” Rey says and searches for his hand under the duvet. She intertwines her fingers with his and squeezes. He squeezes back, a bit too hard, but she doesn’t tell him that.

“I thought I was doing good things,” Kylo murmurs. “Dealing with crime, doing justice on our worlds, rebuilding the First Order after Snoke. And yet, even good things led me to _that_. To more darkness.”

“You have to fight it. You can’t just give up and decide to go and die while you take Palpatine down.”

“It’s not just resignation. There’s more to it.”

“You're afraid he’ll drag you deeper into darkness,” Rey guesses. “That when you meet him, you won’t wish to fight him any longer. You’d embrace darkness completely and the conflict will disappear. But I’ll help you. This is why I need to come with you. It won’t happen if I’m with you.”

“Why would you risk your life for me? I’m certainly not worth it.”

“Why, for myself and for the Resistance, obviously. I need to be there to make sure you’ll actually get the job done. What if he kills you and then I’m left to deal with him on my own?”

Kylo snorts. It’s a good sign. It lightens the atmosphere, and they have never needed it more than right now.

“Apparently I’m hopeless at combat, but at least I can distract the opponent,” Rey continues half-jokingly. “Like I did with Snoke, remember?”

This time, he almost laughs.

“You’re not hopeless. I didn’t say that. I wouldn’t say that to someone who defeated me the first time ever she held a lightsaber.”

“That was one year ago. Yesterday, you told me to go back to school.”

“Your footwork is all wrong. But it’s nothing that cannot be corrected.”

“Corrected quickly, I hope. Not sure how much time we will have for the training?”

“I haven’t agreed to any training yet.”

“You need to sleep and rest,” Rey decides. She has no other advice for now. “We need to take it one thing at a time. Tomorrow, we will decide on a plan.”

“You go to sleep. I can’t really sleep properly anymore.”

“Maybe I can help with that too,” Rey turns to her other side, with her back to him. Then she reaches back, finds his arm and tugs at it, putting it on her waist.

“Is this ok?” she asks.

He doesn’t reply and doesn’t move any closer, which disappoints her. She can’t think of any other way to help him – to help both of them – cope with the burden. She can offer him only this comfort, and he doesn’t want it.

“There used to be a time when I and Hux didn’t get on so badly,” Kylo says suddenly. “Then Snoke set us against each other, made us compete for his approval. We became enemies. And after Snoke’s death, we still played the roles Snoke had assigned to us.”

“Hux wanted your position,” Rey replies as her anxiety spikes. She doesn’t like where this conversation is going. “Not your friendship. He didn’t want to be your second-in-command. It was too late to repair it, Kylo.”

“I just kept doing what Snoke had been doing. I treated Hux in exactly the same way. And in the end, I became like Snoke.”

“You killed Snoke. You’re _nothing_ like Snoke.”

“Are you sure of that?” he asks. “Are you sure I will still remember that when I face Palpatine? Because your friend FN isn’t so sure.”

Rey remains very still. She can’t see his face; his arm is still draped around her waist, but it feels like a dead weight. He is elsewhere, not here with her; he is in his private hell and Rey isn’t sure she can follow him there. She isn’t sure she wants to or should. But she knows that even if nobody can save anybody else, sometimes a little push, a little pull, is what people need.

He’s a mess and he’s damaged, but he isn’t a danger, not tonight, not to her. Not while there are only the two of them, and the horror to come is still far away. She can choose to think he won’t ever be a danger to her. She can decide to believe that she will always manage to pull him back to sanity. That he won’t turn against her, even if he did attack her as recently as two days ago. That he will control himself and once Palpatine calls him, as she knows he will, Kylo will be able to resist.

Rey knows this is not what a healthy relationship – be it between friends, family, team members or… any other – should look like. But she can’t push him away and ask him to leave. Never mind why, she doesn’t really know herself. Whether it’s for his sake or for her own, she can’t.

She strokes the back of his hand with her thumb.

“Come closer,” she asks, and to her surprise, this time he moves straight away, as if he was just waiting for a second invitation, perhaps refusing to believe the first one had been sincere.

He clings to her back and tightens his arm around her waist. He is so big that even if he’s trying not to impose too much, it feels like he envelops her, his body warm against her skin.

“Maybe you can fall asleep like this,” Rey whispers. “I know you didn’t sleep much last night, but we’re more comfortable today.”

He exhales into her neck and she tries to ignore the pleasant sensation, but she snuggles in closer to him. Their bodies are already flush, yet it’s always possible to get closer, by shifting their arms, legs, or heads ever so slightly. By rubbing her back against his chest as she adjusts to the shape of his body, and they click into place. There it is again, the subtle smell of wood and spices. It feels so right, even though he is, apparently, a monster. He is cruel and brutal, he flashes yellow eyes, he cannot be trusted. Her best friend hates him. And yet, it feels so right.

“Rey,” Kylo says in his deep nasal voice, so close to her neck that she almost feels his lips brush against it.

“Yes?”

“I am sorry for what I did to you on the first day here. It was disgusting.”

Rey sighs.

“I should be mad,” she says. “And I was. So very mad. But now, with all the problems ahead of us… I probably need to save my anger for worse things.”

“Did it help a little to throw sand at my face?” Kylo asks. Good. He’s back to his sarcastic mode.

“Actually, it did, even if you kicked my ass a few minutes later. But it did feel good while it lasted.”

He snorts and slides his other arm under her neck, then buries his face in her hair and hums. The humming might mean he agrees, or that he announces a truce, or simply enjoys breathing her in and relaxing next to her. She isn’t sure. But it definitely means something positive.

“I am afraid,” he says so quietly that for a moment she wonders whether she has not imagined it. It might be the most important, the most sincere thing he has said since his arrival on Pasaana. The first time he has really opened his heart, if ever so slightly.

Rey doesn’t ask for more. She does not need him to specify what he is afraid of exactly: confronting Palpatine, slipping deeper into darkness, or getting closer to her. All of these are scary.

“Me too,” she replies.

They’re silent after that. She keeps stroking the back of his hand with her thumb. After a few minutes, his breathing slows down and evens out. Soon he starts snoring lightly, which makes her smile.

Rey’s asleep a moment later, feeling warm and choosing to be hopeful about the future, despite everything that is falling apart in the galaxy. She buries her fears deep. She desperately needs to trust him rather than worry that she may have let a mortal enemy into her bed.

_Or maybe it’s he who let an enemy into his bed_, hisses the little voice in her head, the one that isn’t Kylo’s voice coming through the bond, but it isn’t quite her own voice, either. It is something else, the twisted thing inside of her. _Maybe _you_ are the real danger. He has now told you everything. He was totally honest. You weren’t. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (You know, Kylo is like a nice meal you take out of the deep freeze and leave on the table for hours, waiting until it thaws. Only that with him it takes even longer!)
> 
> So… do you think he’ll still be there when she wakes up in the morning? ;-)
> 
> Any thoughts - as usual - very welcome and appreciated!


	6. Chapter 6

When she wakes up in the morning, he’s still there, his arm wrapped around her, his calm breath tickling her neck. He radiates warmth like a heater. It looks like he’s slept peacefully all night.

His big arm around her waist feels heavy and Rey likes it. She wonders lazily what it would be like to make love to a man with such a big body. How it would feel to lie underneath him, his weight bearing on her, his broad frame hovering above. How these enormous hands would feel roaming over her body. Is he so big everywhere? Because logically, assuming he’s built proportionally, he should be…

He shifts behind her back and pulls her closer to him.

“Would you like to see for yourself?” he murmurs.

“What?!” Rey says, startled. Did he hear her thoughts? She thought he was asleep.

“Whether I’m proportionally built,” he replies in the same smug whisper, clinging to her back. He is hard. He’s not exactly grinding against her, but he’s pressing into her backside deliberately to make her feel it.

“Good morning,” he says with a tinge of wicked amusement in his voice. He moves his hand from her waist onto her belly and starts stroking her skin slowly.

And just like that, although she tries to suppress it, she is aching, there is a throbbing sensation between her legs and she arches her back, rubbing herself against his erection. He makes a low sound deep in his throat and it takes all her composure not to grab his hand and pull it higher, to her breast – _or lower_.

But he is taking the initiative now. There’s a rustle of clothes as he sits up. Surprised, Rey turns onto her back to see what he’s doing, and he settles opposite her, at her feet.

He’s _naked_.

Rey is completely dumbfounded. She props herself up on her elbows and devours him with her eyes.

He kneels and sits back on his heels, in a relaxed position, his legs leisurely open, letting her appreciate everything. His whole body is on display: the broad chest, which she had the opportunity to admire a year ago via the bond, and the rest, which she’s discovering for the first time. There is really a touch of exhibitionism in him. That time when she saw him bare-chested, he was smug enough to come even closer to her, ignoring her request to cover himself up. Now he’s also provoking her. But this time she won’t ask him to find a cowl.

He is massive. His chest is enormous, his arms are as thick as her legs, and his thighs… and yes, he is proportionally built. _Very proportionally_. He’s completely hard and, well, Rey has been with two or three men on Jakku, but they never put themselves on display like this in front of her. Plus, none of those scavengers, as scrawny as herself, was _so big_.

Before she has the time to recover from her surprise and admiration, he takes himself in hand. He’s holding himself at the base, his other hand leisurely resting on one of his thighs.

He starts stroking his length very slowly and Rey swallows, wide-eyed. She glances into his eyes and he’s looking straight at her, a little smirk on his face, but she can’t manage to keep her eyes at his face level –

“Like what you see?” Kylo murmurs, and she just can’t believe the nerve he has. How can he be sometimes so vulnerable and withdrawn, and at other times so confident, so much in control, toying with her, mocking her embarrassment?

It’s quite a show. Those thick thighs – this muscular body – the luscious hair – the hand’s slow movement, up and down, at a steady pace, which she’s following with her eyes, mesmerized. He has black hair there, too. Kylo Ren sitting naked on her bed, hard and stroking himself in front of her, commanding her full attention, is the most erotic sight Rey has ever beheld.

She sits up and strips herself of her nightshirt in one go. She’s only wearing panties underneath. Kylo groans, gazing at her almost naked body as she kneels and sits back on her heels, mirroring his position and facing him.

They’re so close their knees almost touch. Rey wants to touch him, she wants to touch herself, but at the same time, she doesn't want to distract them both from his amazing show. It’s so sensual, so _shameless_, that by now her underwear is completely soaked, and he’s not even touching her.

She slides her hands up his thighs and her fingers brush his groin. Kylo’s breath speeds up and he grabs her right hand. He places it at his base and closes his fist firmly around it, then starts moving both of their hands together, at a faster rhythm than before.

Rey’s heart slams in her chest. She can now fully appreciate his girth, and she loves the feeling of his skin on her palm. It’s like velvet. She lets him set the pace and thrust his hips forward into her hand with each movement to increase the friction.

She’s afraid he’ll devour her. This is what his eyes, dark with desire and possession, are saying. He is Kylo Ren, he will take whatever he wants, and what he wants now is her hand pleasuring him.

He groans again and Rey guesses he won’t last long. She slides her left hand inside her underwear. He notices the movement and watches hungrily as her fingers rub circles around her sensitive spot, very wet now. Rey rises a little on her knees to let him better appreciate how thoroughly the fabric of her underwear is soaked, and it makes him bite his lip and tighten his fist around her palm. A few more thrusts of their joint hands, a few jerks of his hips and he is coming hard, with an almost obscene sound down in his throat, one wave after another. He continues to move their hands all along, squeezing so hard it hurts, but the pain excites Rey as she rubs herself more and more eagerly. He comes all over her, on her breasts, her stomach, her thighs, and he leaves her hand wet and slick.

She’s never experienced anything like that. It’s violent, but in a good way. She looks down at herself, her body bearing so many traces of his passion. He’s slowing down now and he releases her hand with a contented sigh.

They look into each other’s eyes, both panting. He has this smug, possessive look that absolutely infuriates her but also makes her core ache. She removes her hand from her underwear; she wants to be touched by him, and he smiles as he moves closer, ready to put his hands on her –

But suddenly he starts fading. The connection is ending. Rey inhales sharply, frustrated, and he reads her expression. He reaches up with his hand – the same with which he stroked himself, still slick from his own release – and caresses her breast, smearing his come across it. There’s no describing how wonderful his fingers feel, and when he cups her breast, Rey whimpers.

“Rey,” Kylo murmurs and disappears a moment later.

She screams in frustration and falls back onto the bed, hear heart still ramming in her chest.

What has just happened?

She will answer that question later. She’s ashamed and mortified, but she can’t help herself. She tears her underwear off and shoves her hand between her thighs, fingering herself furiously. She’s thinking of what she’s just seen, of the show he’s given her, of the sound he made when he came. She can still smell him on her body, and as she rubs herself into oblivion, she would give anything to have him still here, to feel his hand between her legs.

Yellow eyes or not.

She could try to reopen the bond and call him back, but she doesn’t want to show him how much she needs him at this moment, it would give him too much power over her, he would gloat. And she can’t wait for him anyway; she won’t last that long. She comes a few seconds later, shuddering. And twenty minutes after that, when she takes a shower, she makes herself come again, imagining Kylo standing behind her in the refresher and thrusting his fingers inside her.

* * *

On the way to the mess hall for breakfast, Rey comes across the tall warrior in black who arrived with Kylo on the first day. She hasn’t seen the person since then; he, or rather she, as the silhouette suggests, must be hiding somewhere, perhaps eating alone in her room. Or spending time with Kylo, who also hasn’t been seen in the mess hall at mealtimes? Normally Rey would swallow her curiosity and mind her own business, but today, of all days, she needs to know.

“Who are you?” she asks sharply, and the person’s head – covered with a mask and a helmet – immediately darts to her.

“Take that off,” Rey demands. “We are not on a battlefield here. It’s a peace negotiation and we need to know who we are talking to. Are you a Knight of Ren?”

The black warrior raises her hands to the helmet and hurriedly takes it off.

When a face emerges, Rey couldn’t be more astonished. She’s looking at a young girl, tall but otherwise still almost a child, of a species that she still didn’t know a few months ago but is now able to identify as Cerean.

“I apologise,” the girl says, looking embarrassed. “Master Ren always tells me not to wear it, but I feel better behind a mask. Although people do stare.”

“Who are you?” Rey asks, dumbfounded. Whoever she is, she is definitely not Kylo’s mistress, or companion, or whatever Rey has imagined for the past days.

“I am master Ren’s student. My name is Saar-Yen-Dii.”

* * *

“Are you angry with me, Rey?” Kylo inquires. At the negotiation meeting this morning – during which Rey seemed distracted and stubbornly avoided his eyes – they agreed to see the holocron together during the midday break. They are now walking from the red tent to Kylo’s Upsilon-class shuttle in complete silence. He has tried to make conversation, but she replied curtly to his opening.

“Should I apologize for this morning?” he asks, his voice a touch colder than a moment ago.

For this morning? Definitely not, unless he wants to apologise for disappearing too fast, before she could –

“No.”

“You’re acting as if you were angry.”

“I’m not.”

“All right.”

And now, he is angry. And hurt.

“I made acquaintance with your student this morning,” Rey says.

“Right. I was meaning to tell you about her. What did you think?”

“Well, at first I was surprised. I thought she was your… apprentice. You know what I mean.”

“I know. The Rule of Two. The Master and the Apprentice. No, it’s not like that.”

“Yes, she did explain.”

They keep walking. Kylo cocks his head at her, as if he waited for the rest.

“She told me an interesting story,” Rey resumes drily. “Of how you found her _in a brothel_ on Coruscant and saved her. I applaud your good conscience. Were you her client? Did you decide to save her when you noticed she was a child? Or did you spot her accidentally when enjoying your time with another slave woman there?”

Kylo stares at her as if she spoke Huttese.

“Saar-Yen-Dii told you that?” he asks blankly.

“She was too delicate to give me such details. She just said you found her in a brothel. The context was not so difficult to imagine.”

He stares again, and suddenly bursts out laughing.

It’s Kylo Ren, so it’s more of a series of loud snorts than a real laugh, but it goes on for a moment. Rey is livid. Look at this smug bastard, masturbating in front of her this morning and disappearing as soon as he got what he wanted, how pleased he is now to hear she knows all about his flamboyant masculinity. This is so bloody insulting. Maybe he is used to treating women the way he treated her three days ago – he just grabs them. Who knows what he was allowed or even encouraged to do during his time with Snoke, to deepen his connection with the dark side.

“It’s disgusting. And you making fun of it, even more so.”

Incredibly, he continues to laugh even harder.

“Little Jedi, you will be pleased to learn that I was in that brothel on business and not for pleasure.”

“What business? You do business with brothel owners on Coruscant, now?”

“I followed a criminal lead,” Kylo explains, clearly enjoying her dismay. “To bust a human trafficking gang. I just wonder if you will be more or rather _less_ disgusted to find out that instead of having sex there, I killed the owners and the clients. All dead. About thirty men. How about that? Is that more to your liking?”

Infuriatingly, it is. When he reveals he wasn’t there as a client, Rey’s relief is so huge – _so huge_ – that she’s truly ashamed of herself.

“I am rather surprised that killing thirty people, rotten as they were, shocks a Jedi much less than enjoying an hour of paid pleasure,” Kylo continues, his eyes mocking her mercilessly. “But then again, I wasn’t a good Jedi padawan, so I must have missed the lessons that would explain it. I only remember the Jedi always had an unhealthy attitude to the pleasures of the body.”

She smacks him on the arm, glaring furiously.

“I’m not a Jedi,” she murmurs.

“You’re not,” Kylo agrees. “Jealousy is a very non-Jedi feeling.”

“I’m not jealous!”

“You _are_ jealous,” he insists, grinning. Actually, he looks almost… happy. Definitely amused, and somewhat cheerful. Rey’s heart tightens. He needs so little –

“In case you were wondering, I don’t frequent these places,” he adds and looks at her expectantly.

“It wouldn’t be so strange if you did,” Rey barks. “The body has its needs, I suppose.”

“It does,” Kylo agrees, his eyes boring into her. “But there are other opportunities. Do you know I had about ten proposals of arranged marriage in the last year? This is what happens when you are the Supreme Leader of the First Order. All manner of candidates from various worlds, royal, noble, or just filthy rich. Human, alien, you name it.”

Rey stares at him wide-eyed.

“It’s not funny,” she says.

“I wasn’t joking. It’s true.”

“And? Why aren’t you married then?”

“Who says I’m not?” Kylo asks almost playfully. He dares to _mock her_. Rey can’t think of anything to say and just frowns, regretting bitterly her weakness from this morning.

“Poor woman!” she utters in the end, as grumpy and hostile as she can manage.

“Who says it’s a woman?” Kylo replies and laughs again. This time she snorts despite herself.

Are they having fun? Making jokes together? This is the first time. She has never seen him like this. For a moment, he seems so relaxed, at ease, so pleased to be here, with her. Or perhaps she reads too much into it? Maybe it’s just a post-coital macho display of confidence?

“Right, enough of this nonsense,” Rey says curtly. They’ve been standing in front of his shuttle for some time now, having this silly conversation. “Let’s go and see this holocron.”

* * *

On the shuttle, Kylo leads her along shiny black corridors towards a door. They get inside what must be his bedroom, or rather a place that serves as his bedroom when he travels in this ship. At any rate, there’s nothing special here, no personal items; either he likes scant decoration, or he has moved all his things to the shelter. There’s just a double bed, a closet, a bedside table and a desk with a mirror over it.

On the desk, sits the holocron. Rey has never seen one; she read about them in the books she took from Luke’s, but this is not a Jedi holocron like the ones she saw in the drawings. It has a pyramidal shape, it’s black and the edges between the triangular plates are red. Kylo picks it up and puts it on the floor, then sits by it. Rey sits by his side and touches the holocron carefully; she knows she won’t get hurt but it’s somehow unseemly to just pick it up. It’s an evil object. At least it doesn’t make her feel uneasy or ill, like one of the books mentioned a Jedi may feel in the presence of a Sith holocron.

_You’re not a Jedi_, the inner voice reminds her.

So she takes it and looks at it from all sides, then puts it down again, glances at Kylo – who watches her, his arms folded over his chest – closes her eyes and reaches for the Force, willing it to open.

It doesn’t.

“Need help?” Kylo asks.

Rey sighs. Normally only a dark sider can open a Sith holocron, so she needs to reach for darkness. Anger and suffering are for her the easiest paths to darkness, and as she’s not experiencing any of these now, she chooses to picture in her mind the black hole on Ahch-To and the cave below it, where she looked in vain for the truth about her parents.

The holocron unfurls like a flower and Rey is slightly taken aback by how easy and quick it was. Even Kylo raises an eyebrow. But there’s no time to wonder; a holo of a man in a long black robe, wearing a hood, appears. His face can barely be seen; he lowers his head as if he didn’t want to be recognized, but he’s human.

“Greetings. I am Leeso Tran. Learn the story of Darth Sidious’ discovery of prolonged life and the secrets of essence transfer.”

Rey’s heart skips a beat. Her eyes dart to Kylo who watches the holocron’s gatekeeper calmly. That reassures her; she is glad they are watching it together.

She spends the next half an hour listening carefully because she knows she doesn’t want to see this thing again. Leeso Tran introduces himself as one of Darth Sidious’ secret apprentices whose existence was not known to Darth Vader. There were five of them, Tran claims, all scientists and Force scholars. They created a laboratory where Emperor Sidious would experiment with substitute vessels. Rey has no idea what the term means until Tran proceeds to explain the idea of the transfer of essence onto a substitute body or object. Ideally, another Force user should serve as a vessel if the essence that is being transferred is to achieve its full capacity in a new body. In a weaker host, the transferred consciousness will live, but it will not be able to exercise its full potential. Alternatively, an object that is a significant Force artefact can be used for a temporary transfer. Also, if a strong Force user willingly allows a new consciousness to be transferred into his or her body, their two essences will fuse, and the resulting being will be more powerful than the sum of the two.

When the time comes, Tran says, Darth Sidious, who was struck down by his apprentice Darth Vader, will rise again and call upon all strong Force users. They will have to choose whether to join or confront him. When the time comes, he will descend upon the galaxy with the army of a thousand ships to destroy the Light and the Jedi forever.

When the lecture ends, Kylo is silent, but Rey has plenty of questions, which she asks Tran, even if she’s reluctant to enter into dialogue with him. A holocron is supposed to be interactive, so it should be programmed to answer. What or who did Darth Sidious transfer his essence onto upon his death? Where is he now? And where are his secret apprentices, are they still alive? Where were they hiding during the Empire time, so that Vader didn’t know about them? Why did Sidious choose to have so many students in the first place?

Leeso Tran, however, replies in a very enigmatic manner. Perhaps more information is available but there is a security mechanism that is released only if a special combination of words is used? In any case, Rey insists but they’re turning in circles, she is getting a headache and the room seems to be slightly spinning. It must be the midday sun, although she is inside the shuttle.

Is she?

Rey blinks and when she opens her eyes, Kylo isn’t there any longer. Around her, the room darkens. For a while, she cannot focus her eyes; her vision is blurred. Darkness starts to widen and shift until she’s not in the room or on the shuttle at all anymore.

She’s floating in the air, above something that looks like a mirror – it might be either a solid reflective surface or very still dark water, she’s not sure. In the distance, a fortress made of ice appears to rise, its perfect reflection shining in the mirror below. Darkness surrounds it and Rey is flying towards it, yet the fortress doesn’t seem to get any closer. There is an eerie silence and _there is nothing else around_, as if she were in the vacuum of space. She starts to feel cold; is this because of the proximity of ice? She has never seen a landscape like that. She has seen snow and ice on Hoth – and what a discovery that was! – but this is very different.

All of a sudden, she drops in a free fall and plunges into the mirror, which opens to receive her and then closes above her head. It doesn’t feel like water; it is viscous, almost rubbery, yet she is moving through it easily – always downwards. She looks up but there’s no light above; soon she’s surrounded by darkness from all sides, and when she tries to breathe, the strange substance enters her nose, so she holds her breath again. Rey’s lungs are emptying of oxygen; she starts flailing her arms wildly, trying to move back up to the surface, but it’s as if layers upon layers of transparent darkness were closing upon her –

_Rey, what’s going on?_

She can feel Kylo’s anxiety pick up at the other end of the bond. She tries to call for help but her brain is getting muddled and her vision starts to blur. In front of her, the contour of the ice fortress should be visible under the surface but it’s nowhere to be found. She has lost orientation. In a moment she will have to open her mouth. The viscous substance around her is shimmering now but it’s not good light, there’s something evil in it, _something alive_ –

_It’s an illusion. It’s not real. Calm down. Reach for the Force._

His voice in her head is like a bright lantern she focuses on. She closes her eyes and the ominous landscape disappears. She is still holding her breath but the headache relents. Rey raises her arms again and pushes upwards.

Yet it takes too long. There’s no other choice but to open her mouth, letting the sticky substance in. She chokes –

– And she’s yanked up in one strong tug. Thrashing about and retching, she emerges above the surface, draws a long breath and opens her eyes.

She’s lying on the floor of the room, the holocron beside her. The device is closed now. Kylo is kneeling next to her, peering at her face and holding her firmly by the arm.

“What happened?”

“Have you just pulled me out of it?”

“I only helped you. I gave you a little push in the Force. What was it? What did you see?”

“Why didn’t you tell me there would be an illusion? I almost died!”

“I don’t think you’d have died. You would likely have passed out. It’s a good exercise to overcome an illusion, and the one I saw when I watched it for the first time wasn’t that scary. It didn’t seem dangerous.”

“So you didn’t see any now?”

“No. Once you know the holocron produces this effect, it’s easy to resist being sucked into it a second time.”

“What did you see the first time, then?”

“A huge empty room,” Kylo replies. He has let go of her arm but they’re still on the floor. Rey inspects quickly her clothes and body; there’s no trace of the strange viscous substance. It seemed so real, and yet…

“At the very end of the room,” Kylo continues, “there was a black throne, made of jagged stone with spikes. It was empty, but it didn’t _feel_ empty.”

“You mean there was a presence?”

“Yes, something was there. But I couldn’t see it.”

“I also felt it. I saw an iceberg… which was a castle, or a fortress, partly immersed in transparent substance. I fell into it, and I almost drowned. I can’t swim…”

“In my vision, I walked towards the throne, but it seemed to get further and further away, and the room around me got bigger. Then I realized it was a dark illusion. Snoke had me trained in those. I stopped, reached for the Force, and it disappeared.”

Kylo thinks for a moment.

“The illusion it gave you was stronger,” he says. “It preyed on your weakness. It _knew_ you can’t swim. I felt your fear through the bond.”

He glances at her and frowns.

“You want to confront one of the strongest Sith of all times, Rey… but you can’t even recognize a simple illusion that one Sith holocron can summon. Do you have any idea what illusions Palpatine might throw at you? Do you realise what you’re up against?”

“I will know better next time,” Rey says, mortified. She knows Kylo is right. Will she really be able to recognize an illusion next time? And if not, will he always be there to save her? There was nothing about dark illusions in the Jedi books she read.

“We’ll have to address this,” Kylo says. “You’ll have to learn to recognize and resist illusions. We’ll need to practise that when we train.”

He looks away, perhaps to pretend he doesn’t see how his words make her prick up her ears. So he agrees to train with her, which means he also agrees to them confronting Palpatine together! When are they starting? Where will the training take place? Rey wants to ask him all these questions, but she thinks better of it. She can’t push him too hard, or he will push back. She has learnt that already. She needs to be patient.

“Do you think the places we saw really exist?” Rey asks instead.

“No idea. What did you think of the holocron’s content?”

“It was very mysterious. The gatekeeper didn’t really answer any of my questions.”

“Yes. I also asked many questions the first time and he answered in the same evasive way. But there’s one thing I started to suspect after hearing the story of five secret apprentices, even if Tran didn’t confirm it when I asked.”

“What is it?”

“I think Snoke might have been one of the five,” Kylo says, getting up from the floor. Rey rises after him. “He bid his time and waited for an opportunity. And perhaps, once Sidious disappeared – transferring his essence onto something or someone – and Vader was dead, the five apprentices started fighting among them.”

“And Snoke won? And he built the First Order from the ashes of the Empire?”

“Perhaps. It just seems possible. Nobody knew who Snoke was and where he came from. He never told me, either.”

“Do you have other holocrons like that?” Rey asks.

“I have a whole library of artefacts on the _Finalizer_. Both Jedi and Sith holocrons are there. I spent years collecting those when I was Snoke’s apprentice.”

“And you opened and watched them all?”

“Yes. The Jedi ones were somewhat difficult to access for me but in the end I managed, just like you did with the Sith holocron.”

Rey doesn’t say anything, but an unspoken question “will you let me watch them?” hangs in the air. He doesn’t answer it. Perhaps he feels he conceded enough when he agreed to the training.

They keep standing there, in the middle of his room, looking at each other. She can feel his emotions through the bond. He is afraid. It’s not reassuring, because she is afraid too, or rather terrified, after what she saw.

“I think I didn’t believe this threat was real before I saw this,” Rey says slowly. “I mean, I believed you… and I had the same nightmares as you, but I didn’t realize…”

“Yeah. I know. I felt the same when I saw it.”

“You understand what it means, right? Why Sidious is targeting us?”

“Of course. He wants to use one of us as a vessel to transfer his essence. Well, that’s not going to happen.”

“How many ships does the First Order have, Kylo?” Rey asks.

“We have enough,” he replies, visibly tensing up.

“Enough against an army of a thousand ships?”

* * *

In the afternoon, Rey doesn’t return to the negotiations. She prefers to meditate. The search in the Force doesn’t offer any real answers to her questions, but it calms her doubts and steels her against the challenges to come. She also tries to use meditation to distance herself from what happened this morning and from her thoughts of Kylo, but it seems this is not how the Force works.

When the bond opens again in the evening – after dinner but not very late – Kylo looks amused.

“The Force has a strange habit of connecting us at bedtime,” he remarks.

“Well, we see each other a lot during the rest of the day. So the bond is not needed then.”

“You mean it is needed now?” he asks, leaning towards her a little. They are both sitting on her bed. He’s wearing day clothes, but they look more comfortable and less formal than those he wears during the negotiations.

“What do you think?” Rey ventures.

“I think we may have some unfinished business here,” he replies, moves closer and pulls her down onto her back on the bed, then settles next to her, his head propped up on his hand. He slides his other hand under her top, drags his fingers across her stomach and rubs gentle circles on her side.

It shouldn’t surprise Rey after what happened this morning, and yet it takes her breath away. It’s a very chaste touch – for the time being. But given how distant and even hostile Kylo was just a few days ago, it is rather astonishing to be lying with him on the bed, receiving his caresses. It might be less intense than the events of the morning but seems no less unreal.

“Well, none of it is real,” Kylo remarks, still leisurely stroking her side.

“Stop listening to my thoughts.”

“You’re projecting. It’s all through the bond, so, technically, it’s not happening. We are not really touching. In all those moments when we found ourselves so close – starting with Ahch-To – we were not really together, not in the same room, and back then not even in the same star system.”

“So what are you saying? That it doesn’t count?”

“No. Obviously, it counts. The bond doesn’t make us act contrary to our wishes or say anything we don’t mean. But it’s somehow different. Don’t you find? As if it was happening in a dream.”

“And yet, when I woke up from that dream this morning, I had traces of it all over my body.”

Kylo smiles at this bold reminder of their intimate – or mad – moment and shifts his hand so that his fingers brush her breast through the breastband.

“I’m only saying it’s easier this way. It happens in the space beyond our respective realities, which can be isolated and separated from our lives. A space where there is less to fear.”

Rey doesn’t like this. She likes his hand on her skin, his gentle yet very sensual touch, slow and focused – _she likes it_ _a lot_ – but he’s spoiling it completely by what he’s saying. It’s cynical, as if he tried to distance himself from her, pretending it’s just a game, a pastime without consequences, where real emotions don’t come into play. In fact, he is saying that this wouldn’t happen, he wouldn’t choose to do it with her, if they were really sitting here, face to face.

“Maybe you just don’t find me good enough for you,” Rey utters, and his hand goes still. “Is that what it is? Is this the conclusion after one year? Because why would you rely on the bond, otherwise? We are in the same place now. _Literally in the same corridor of the same building_. If you really wanted to be with me now, to touch me, you’d just cross the corridor and knock on my door.”

“And you, on mine,” Kylo replies and stops caressing her but his hand remains on her side. Its pleasant warmth distracts her, but Rey resolves to focus, because now she’s irritated.

“Perhaps I would, if you hadn’t pushed me away violently the first time I did try to touch you in reality, and not via the bond –”

“I apologised for that!”

“– Or if you hadn’t told me all those stories of your conquests and arranged marriages with royals and aristocrats from all over the galaxy!”

“Give me a break, Rey,” Kylo barks and this time he moves his hand away for good. “_My conquests_? We laughed about it together! I can never say or do anything right with you, can I? Perhaps your friend the traitor has a better sense of humour? Why don’t you go knock on his door, then?”

“Oh, so you’re jealous about Finn now –”

“I’m not jealous! I don’t give a damn –”

“Yes, we’ve already established that, haven’t we?” Rey cuts him off bitterly. “You don’t give a damn. You keep telling me that. And now you want to play with me in bed, but only through the bond so that you can pretend it’s not real, no feelings involved. Thank you for that, Kylo. You do have a way with compliments! I should have known that, too, since you told me _I was nothing –_”

Kylo sits up abruptly and looms over her, looking hurt and angry, the two emotions which, in him, always seem to go together.

“You know very well I didn’t mean it that way,” he spits at her. “But you choose to twist everything, you always pick the worst possible reading. Are you so insecure, or do you just want to fight? We keep fighting, and I’m so sick of it –”

He stops because the air around them changes. The bond starts to dissolve.

“No!” Rey shouts, desperate, and grabs his hand. “No, don’t go like this! You can’t leave now!”

“I’m not doing this,” he hisses. “I’m not trying to leave –”

And just like this, he is gone.

Rey snatches a pillow from the bed, puts her face into it and screams with rage.

* * *

Ten minutes later, when she’s done raving, she’s overwhelmed by sadness. This conversation didn’t go well, and it’s difficult to say who was more at fault. They do tend to fight about everything. His hand was on her breast, they were lying next to each other on the bed; how did they go from that to shouting and accusing each other yet again?

Perhaps there is too much resentment between them, they hurt each other too deeply and the negative emotions resurface at every little misunderstanding. He is right; she’s insecure, but so is he. The rift is too big, and a few days of good will paired with a decision to join forces against a common enemy are not enough to close it. Perhaps all they can ever hope for is a random heated encounter through the bond, like this morning. They just need to stay away from tricky subjects. Keep it light and simple.

Rey doesn’t want to keep it light and simple. It’s difficult to say what she _does_ want – until this morning, she would probably have denied she wanted anything. But it’s definitely not a few hurried moments of pure physical comfort, almost hygienic in nature, like those she shared a few times on Jakku with men as desperate and lonely as herself.

She won’t go to him. Not after he made it clear this arrangement can only work in a dream space, beyond reality. Each of them could try to reinitiate the connection by tugging at the bond. But Rey is too hurt for this, and he must be too, or he has decided she’s not even good for that. A nobody from nowhere, a scavenger whose only redeeming feature is her Force ability, which she can’t even properly harness and control. A moment ago, her body ached with desire and need; now it’s gone cold. It’s too early to go to sleep but she doesn’t have the heart to go out and mingle with her friends. It will be a long evening –

There is a knocking at the door, three discreet but distinct taps. The sound is low and muffled but it cuts through the silence of her room like an alarm siren and Rey almost jumps. She would find it ominous if she weren’t hoping for it all along.

She waves her hand and the door opens by a few inches. The person behind it steps inside silently and hovers in the shadow.

“If it’s not a good idea,” Kylo speaks slowly, in a low voice, “Tell me – and I will leave –”

Rey gets to her feet and covers the few metres that separate them in just two strides.

“You have come!” she exclaims, stopping in front of him and peering at his face, which is unreadable. He’s completely closed off. He looks very much like he did when her escape pod hissed open on the _Supremacy_ and he gazed down at her impassively, then ordered the binders.

“Yes,” Kylo replies evenly. “I thought the worst that can happen is that I will make a fool of myself, and you’ll tell me to leave.”

“You’re not making a fool of yourself,” Rey whispers. His eyes must be drilling a hole in her head right now, and her heart responds in kind, beating harder in her chest.

“That day in the throne room, one year ago,” Kylo says in the same level voice, his expression still guarded, but his eyes, and also the clenched fists, which Rey notices only now, give him away, “You broke my heart.”

“And you think you didn’t break mine?” Rey asks, but she can’t manage the same firm tone. Her voice shatters at the end of the sentence and she has to take a deep breath to stop herself from crying. She can never control her tears around him, it was the same in the throne room, she just couldn’t get a grip on herself –

He watches her struggle for two or three seconds, then waves his hand ever so slightly and the door behind him closes softly as he takes one step in her direction.

Rey reaches up, puts one hand on his cheek, the other on his chest, and presses her lips to his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Such an intense mess, these two! Were you as surprised as Rey by what happened in the morning? :-)
> 
> And in the middle of these complicated feelings, a Sith holocron and dark visions. I love putting elements of the trailer into my story; here’s hoping you liked the way it was done in this chapter.
> 
> Stay with me for the things to come and please tell me what you think - I love to read your feedback. As usual, thanks so much for reading, liking, bookmarking, subscribing, and for all the nice words.


	7. Chapter 7

When she kisses him, for a second he seems too stunned to react. But once she pulls away to look at him, his lips chase after her and he catches her in his arms.

When she kisses him again, he opens his mouth a little. For a moment, it’s just lips brushing against lips, mapping the territory, marvelling at how such a slight touch, such slight pressure, can make them shiver. Through the bond, Kylo’s emotion hits Rey.

_He has goosebumps._

Rey smiles and flicks her tongue against his lips, which are, after all, made for kissing. She has often thought that. Somehow, this simple kiss makes her heart beat as hard as the sight of him naked on her bed this morning, stroking himself.

Kylo was right. Through the bond, it’s good but it’s less real. Now this, here, is very, very real.

When she touches his lips with her tongue, he makes a sound between a groan and a whimper and lifts her from the floor. She wraps her legs around his hips and now their faces are on the same level.

They dive into each other’s mouth, his tongue against hers, his arms locked under her for support. Rey weaves her hands into his hair. She has fantasized about it furiously. For one year, she thought about him when she touched herself, then pretended it didn’t happen because he was the enemy and he was on the dark side. It was her deepest secret. But touching his hair was the most innocent of her fantasies, the one she indulged in more freely. Just to feel it once, just to run her fingers through it.

It's thick and soft, and silky, and she can’t get enough of it. When she tugs at it, he doesn’t resist. He closes his eyes and purrs.

It’s so bloody hot she might just lose her mind.

Kylo walks with Rey wrapped around him, lays her down on the bed and settles next to her. Rey straddles him and pulls her top off in one swift movement, then beckons him to do the same. And then it’s another hungry, deep kiss, her arms around his neck, his hands wandering across her bare back and sliding under her breastband. She tears the breastband off and pulls away, letting him appreciate her body. Not that there is that much to appreciate – she’s not very endowed in this department, she knows it, but the look on his face as he stares at her, mesmerized, gives her self-esteem a great boost.

She pushes him down and they fall onto their sides, facing each other. Rey pulls her leggings down, then tugs at the buckle of his belt. Kylo gets rid of his trousers in under three seconds. They’re just in their underwear now and they’re all over each other immediately, their bodies flush, their arms and legs tangled, their mouths seeking each other.

Rey wants to touch him everywhere. She has this fantasy of throwing him flat on his back on the bed, immobilizing him with the Force, and just touching and teasing him. She is torn between wanting to explore his body slowly, centimetre by centimetre, and moving fast, just to quench the deep need. In the end, she does explore, in an eager, feverish and hungry way. She runs her hands along his broad chest and back, plays with his hair, grips his bottom and grinds against him shamelessly.

Kylo looks totally lost. His eyes are wild. His hands also wander over her body, and Rey loves his touch. Sometimes it’s tender and as light as a feather, then stronger and more passionate. He starts fondling her breast and Rey moans as the variety of sensations – his tongue playing with hers, his hands on her chest – overwhelms her. He flashes her a look of such intensity it almost takes her breath away – _count on Kylo to be incredibly intense in a moment like this_. He murmurs something incoherent and moves lower, covering her neck with kisses, nibbling at the spot where the neck meets the shoulder until Rey is panting. Then it’s down to her collarbone and her chest. Rey pushes her nipple into his mouth, he hums appreciatively and covers almost all of her small breast with his lips, kissing and licking, his hair falling softly on her skin.

_She could probably come like this, if he just did that long enough. _

He moves lower again, kissing her stomach, and slides his fingers under the waistband of her underwear. There’s a split second when they lock eyes and Rey raises her hips, letting him pull it down. Her underwear is rather simple and a bit worn out, nothing sexy, but he doesn’t seem to notice; he yanks it down and throws it away, then –

He spreads her legs and just dives into her.

That gives her a jolt. She looks down and his head is literally between her thighs. She can feel his breath on her – then also his lips as he drags them around her core, dangerously, dangerously close.

Nobody has ever done this to her – whatever it is that he’s doing – she has never been kissed there, never been in a position like this, never –

_You don’t have to – _

_I want to. _

_I’ve never had this done to me…_

_And I’ve never done it._

He gives her one lick, slowly dragging his tongue along the whole length of her folds and on the inside, where she’s already very wet.

She might just pass out.

Nothing has ever felt like this. Not even close.

He _moans_, as if it was she doing it to him and not the other way round. Is he enjoying it so much? He proceeds to do what she knows is called eating someone out, and it’s a good name, because it does feel as if he was devouring her.

_Is it good?_

_Good? I will – it’s incredible – oh Maker_

He takes one of her thighs and puts it over his shoulder, then slides his hands under her hips to raise her slightly for better access. He licks and sucks every millimetre of her, her most sensitive spot, her opening, into which he inserts his tongue, tentatively –

“Kylo,” Rey gasps. He mutters something wild in response and suddenly his fingers are there too, she can feel them circling her opening while he keeps sucking just above it, where she likes it best. He slides one finger inside and starts moving it in and out of her. He has now found all her sweet spots, inside and outside. He pokes at one, licks the other, and Rey shudders and grabs fistfuls of his hair.

Kylo groans and looks up, which startles her. She lets go of him. She has lost control –

_Do it again. I like it._

She grabs his hair again and pushes her hips into his face, holding him down while he’s pleasuring her. He seems to _like _being held down like this, he certainly likes it when she starts thrusting back at his fingers, because he moans again, both his tongue and hand speeding up –

_Don’t stop don’t stop Kylo please_

_I won’t._

She shouldn’t – she shouldn’t really rub herself all over his face like this, she shouldn’t push back so wildly, but she _likes_ it and he _likes_ it, and it’s not even his moaning that tells her that – she can feel Kylo’s arousal through the bond. His thoughts are incoherent, lustful, loving, intense, needy. He puts his arm on top of her belly to keep her in place so that she doesn’t escape his mouth, and in the end Rey lets go of his hair because she needs to cover her mouth with her forearm to muffle a scream. It all bursts inside her and she almost blacks out, in the most violent, muscle-clenching, skin-tingling orgasm she’s ever had.

She shatters and he is still at it, his mouth and his hand taking her beyond the edge, slowing down with her. She pulses around his tongue and fingers, the next wave comes over her, then the next, until she becomes too sensitive and he stops.

He pushes himself up above her, his face literally covered in her slick. Rey is unable to speak one coherent word.

He looks absolutely wild. He is beautiful.

“Kylo,” Rey breathes, still panting from the blinding, amazing, stupefying experience he has just given her.

She pulls him down by the shoulders and opens her legs to him again.

“Off,” she croaks, tugging at the waistband of his underwear, but instead of waiting for him to do it, she pulls it down herself and he kicks it off. His face is right above her now, his body settled comfortably between her legs. Rey can feel him at her entrance and reaches down again. She slides her fingers down his length, hard and warm.

“Rey,” Kylo hisses, his hair hanging around his flustered face.

“Come here,” she whispers and raises her hips.

He pushes in tentatively. It stings a bit.

“Slowly,” Rey murmurs. It’s been a very long time since her last time, he’s big, and her muscles only start to relax after her climax. Kylo leans down, his forearms around her head, and kisses her. He tastes a bit strange at first until she realizes it’s her own taste. When she puts her arms around his neck, she can feel him tremble.

He pushes inside gradually, centimetre by centimetre, withdraws and comes back again. Rey relaxes a bit more with each of his slow strokes until he opens her up to the very top and stops, fully buried in her.

“Rey,” he repeats, his dark eyes burning.

“I know,” she whispers. “I feel it too.”

_There was a time when I hated you. A time when I wanted to kill you._

_Me too. _

He slowly pulls out, his gaze never leaving her eyes, then sinks in again. Then a second time, and again.

Very deep inside, there is a spot she hasn’t even known, giving her a totally new feeling, like it has never been touched before. Now, it gets stroked with every thrust of his hips. There is a wonderful feeling of fulness, too – and the weight of his body, not crushing but enveloping and cushioning her.

Then there are his eyes…

She likes the slow and deep strokes that are the most sensual; the short and shallow ones, to feel the force of his hips; finally, the deep, wild thrusting that gives her the most intense pleasure. Kylo kneads her breasts, licks into her mouth and pounds her into the mattress so hard that in the end all they can hear, apart from their incoherent moaning, is the wet sound of bodies slapping against each other. It’s messy, it’s primal, it’s hot.

Rey does not come easily, or at least not multiple times. Normally, she would have difficulties climaxing again so soon after a first orgasm. So it really is a surprise when the pressure inside her mounts suddenly and she starts grinding against him, increasing the friction and chasing another release desperately. Just a few more seconds –

_I’m so close, please_

Her fingers dig into his backside so hard it must hurt, and she cries out into his neck while he drives hard into her and starts pulsing. The warmth flooding her from the inside – the stinging of her own clenching muscles – and his pleasure through the bond, sharp and throbbing, it’s just – it’s too much –

_Kylo…_

_Rey._

It’s like the greatest hunger in her life has just been satisfied. Finally, they are close enough, it’s deep enough, strong enough. For a long moment, Rey can’t even open her eyes. She can feel Kylo shift his weight slightly, but he stays inside her, and she doesn’t ever want him anywhere else.

_I’ve never… it’s never been like this… _

_It’s never been like this for me, either. You have ruined me, scavenger._

He slips out of her body slowly and settles next to her, their arms and legs still entwined. He wraps his arm around her neck and presses his forehead to hers.

_Bliss Yours Ruined Forever_

* * *

When they open their eyes again, Rey is not sure how much later it is.

“Have we slept?”

“I think so,” Kylo replies in his deep rumble. They’re lying in a heap of arms and legs entangled, their heads just centimetres away from each other on the pillow. Rey smiles to him and, incredibly, he smiles back. It’s not a smirk, not a sarcastic grimace, not a snort. It’s a real smile, it reaches his eyes, and he even shows his teeth.

She loves to see him smile.

“You have beautiful hair,” Rey says. “And an amazing body.”

He does look stunning. Making love to him, from a purely physical point of view, was quite an experience. He is everything a woman might wish for when she goes to bed with a man.

Kylo looks extremely surprised. Uncertain and awkward, as if he had never received a compliment in his life.

Maybe he hasn’t.

“I keep my hair longer to hide my ears,” he murmurs. “I have big ears.”

“They are cute,” Rey says.

_Cute?!_

Rey shrugs.

_Yeah. _

She is very aware of her own bodily imperfections. Too skinny, too bony, small breasts. But at this moment, she doesn’t really care. Judging from his reactions just some minutes ago, she can’t be that bad.

Kylo pulls her into his embrace, almost crushing her.

_Beautiful Amazing Mine._

_Let’s do it again? _

_Oh yes._

“So how do you want it?” he tries to be light and playful, and fails. It doesn’t suit him. Dark and intense is what suits him. If someone had told Rey a year ago she would find Kylo Ren’s darkness and intensity more alluring than anything else, she wouldn’t have believed.

“I’ve had this fantasy sometimes,” Rey murmurs. “But it made me feel guilty.”

“Because I am a monster?”

Tragically, she has frissons when he purrs that. There’s no point in pretending anymore that she’s not attracted to the monster.

She sends him the images through the bond, the fragments of her guilt-ridden fantasies that kept popping up in her head when she pleasured herself, as she sometimes did, alone in her room on the Resistance base. The memories of his face, his hands, or his chest floated into her mind, and there was no escaping the heated imagination. Afterwards, she felt ashamed.

_Because it was surely below the last Jedi’s dignity to let Kylo Ren take her like that. _

He grabs her and flips her over onto her stomach, then kneels between her spread legs and pulls her hips up. Once she’s on her hands and knees, he pushes into her. This time he doesn’t need to be slow and gentle; one deep stroke is enough. He is strong, Rey knows it by the force of his fingers digging into her flesh and by the strength of his hips hitting against her. Soon her arms give in, her face hits the bed and he’s totally in control, holding her up by the hips and doing exactly what she imagined on those shameful lonely nights, and it feels even better than she thought it would. He thrusts so strong and deep it’s almost _aggressive_ – and that’s the best part. The way he moves, the way he holds her, the way he grunts with each stroke: it is possessive and controlling, but Rey is done feeling ashamed of wanting it like this. Yes, this is exactly how she wanted him. In her loneliest moments, it’s not slow and romantic lovemaking that she imagined, but this – Kylo Ren bending her over and fucking her from behind in the exact same forceful way he fights with her. With the same force, the same passion, the same darkness.

Weren’t all their fights just another version of this, or a foreplay leading to this?

She moans at the friction that makes the well-known pressure build up in her belly and thighs. Kylo slips one hand between her legs and starts rubbing. She thrusts her hips back at him and he makes this really maddening low sound deep in his throat.

“Say it,” he hisses.

_Fuck me, Kylo._

And he does, his thrusts getting faster and stronger, again and again, his fingers rubbing into her wetness, until Rey arches her back and cries out. She goes limp in his hands and he lets her ride it until the end, then releases her abruptly. She falls onto the bed, boneless, but he’s on her in an instant, flipping her over onto her back and sliding inside her again. He grabs her both hands and pins her wrists on the bed above her head.

_I am not done with you._

He gives her a sloppy open-mouthed kiss and starts moving. His eyes are as dark and wild as when he rammed his lightsaber into her weapon in the forest on Starkiller. Rey gasps and he holds her down firmly, thrusting faster and faster, until he slams into her one last time, groans and lets his head drop onto the spot in the angle between her neck and her shoulder.

_Obsessed, I am obsessed by you._

He stays like this for a long time, clutching her, his heart beating very fast against her chest, and Rey strokes his back. They’re both sweaty and sticky, her thighs are wet and the sheets under her are soaked.

This is her favourite moment of her life so far.

* * *

Later, they clean up and relax next to each other. Rey trails her fingers over his face and Kylo closes his eyes. She touches each little beauty spot, his black eyelashes, his long nose, the faint trace of the scar on his forehead and cheek. For the first time, she examines his face so carefully.

Then it’s time for the scar on his shoulder, down to his torso. This one is more distinct. Rey can hardly believe he and the man to whom she gave this injury are the same person, but the scar is there to remind her of it. She can also hardly believe the woman who inflicted that wound and the one who is lying in this bed now are one and the same. She presses her lips to his scar, then touches the other one on his side, left by Chewie’s bowcaster. She remembers the scene. She remembers what Kylo did. Yes, he’s the same and she’s the same, and yet they are both different, too.

“Come back here, Rey.”

She crawls back up into his arms. Kylo encloses her in his embrace and caresses her neck in silence.

“I missed you,” he says finally, so close to her mouth that their lips brush as he speaks. “Since the throne room. For one year, I missed you.”

“Me too.”

Until very recently, that is to say a few days ago, she had not even admitted it to herself. Not so directly, not explicitly. She had simply not allowed herself to think it. He was an enemy, a dark sider, an ungrateful bastard, a dictator, an unhinged madman, a dangerous criminal, a manipulator, a murderer.

He was all those things. He is still some of them. But she can’t lie to herself anymore. He once called her out on the biggest lie she had been telling herself for years, the one about her parents. And even after that, she still continued lying to herself – about him.

Not tonight though. Not ever again. She used to be afraid that admitting to these feelings would weaken her, but instead she feels stronger.

“You can call me Ben if you want,” Kylo says. “I know you prefer it.”

She used to hate the name of Kylo Ren. She wanted to forget about his existence and fantasise about Ben Solo. But now she knows it’s not one or the other – it’s both or none. Maybe there has always been more darkness in Ben Solo and more light in Kylo Ren than she thought. Strangely, although she’s been using it only for a few days, she finds his chosen name – Kylo – no longer repulsive.

“I can call you both. In the end, I like them both.”

_In the end, maybe I do, too_, his eyes tell her.

“Some closure you’re getting here,” Rey remarks mockingly. That was, after all, his stated objective in coming to these negotiations: to get closure. He’s not doing so well on this front.

“We all like to tell ourselves lies sometimes.”

“At least we managed not to ruin everything again. This time, it has turned out all right.”

“Nothing is all right, Rey. We’re in mortal danger. These stolen moments might be everything we’ll ever get. I thought I could at least protect you, but now he has found you…”

“We will win. We will beat him. Together, we will.”

He tightens his embrace but remains silent. Even now, he still believes he is going to confront Darth Sidious and die. Perhaps he believes they are both going to die.

Maybe he is right?

For now, the bond hums between them, alive and strong. It lets emotions seep through, but it does not always help or make things easier. Sometimes it stops them from saying things aloud, important things that should be said.

“Are you warm?” Kylo asks, gathering her even closer to him, because he knows that she always shivered under her thin blanket during the cold nights and mornings on Jakku. He knows the cold is deep in her bones, she’s always afraid of it, just like she is afraid of hunger. She’s warm and content now, he can feel it in the bond, but it’s easier to ask her about that than to say: “You mean everything to me”.

“Yes,” Rey murmurs, her head on his chest, her arm and leg thrown across his body, to be as close as possible, while wrapped in his arms.

“And you, are you comfortable?” she asks, because she knows nobody has looked after him for a long time or thought about his comfort and well-being. Tonight he craved her touch, he enjoyed not just the sex but also the simplest kisses and caresses, the little attentions she has bestowed on him. He is comfortable and relaxed now, she knows it from the way he melts into her, but it’s easier to ask him about that than to say: “Let me love you.”

“Yes, very,” he answers and kisses the top of her head. Rey responds by pressing her lips to his chest, above his heart, and his hand in her hair tightens.

They lie in the dark, images and emotions floating between them, drunk with passion, happiness and something else they are both afraid to name. Terrified, too, that they might be feeling more than the other feels and want more than the other does.

Rey rises slightly and props herself up on her elbow just next to his head.

“No more fighting,” she says. “No more abuse, lashing out, insulting each other. Ever.”

He looks straight into her eyes. At such close quarters, with the bond open between them, no intention, no thought and no emotion can remain hidden.

“No more running away, too,” he says uncertainly, as if he was checking whether she would agree to add this condition to the list.

“Ok,” Rey says. “I promise.”

“I promise, too,” he replies.

* * *

“I propose we start writing up the ceasefire agreement,” Admiral Croos announces next morning when they sit down to their meeting in the red tent. “A list of minimum conditions both sides agree to and a promise to work together towards the final peace deal, with a view to building a new order in the galaxy once the Palpatine threat has been neutralized.”

“I have a slightly different proposal,” Rey says.

She is wearing her hair loosely tied up high on her head. She tied it this way after her shower this morning, just an hour ago. Kylo was still in bed. Earlier, on waking up, they made love once again, quickly and passionately, and when she came back from the refresher, she complained that she could hardly walk.

It wasn’t a real complaint and Kylo didn’t really feel sorry. And now he needs to stop thinking about it because he is getting hard again.

“What do you mean, Rey?” Leia asks.

“I think, given the First Order’s recent actions that we have heard about here, we will be able to agree on basic principles and minimum conditions rather quickly. So instead, I propose we focus immediately on a military treaty to fight Darth Sidious together.”

_I told you this is out of the question._

“And when I say together,” she continues, unphased by his annoyance seeping through the bond, “I don’t mean just the Resistance and the First Order. I mean a galactic military alliance.”

_I will Force choke you._

_We said no more abuse, remember?_

“The Supreme Leader here does not agree with me,” Rey points to Kylo who seethes in silence, “but perhaps he could explain how the First Order counts to defeat Darth Sidious’ army of a thousand ships. How many capital ships does the First Order have, Admiral Croos?”

“We have a few hundred –”

“This is all wild conjecture,” Kylo cuts them off and, as usual when he speaks up, for a moment everybody falls silent. “The army of a thousand ships was obviously a metaphor.”

“I don’t think so,” Rey says firmly.

She proceeds to tell everyone about the holocron, including about the visions they both had. Kylo seethes again but doesn’t stop her. There’s no point; she would tell them about it anyway, sooner or later.

_You go to bed with me and all along you plan this…!_

_You think I’m doing this against you? I’m trying to save your stupid proud ass!_

“I don’t need saving!” Kylo bellows, hitting his fist against the table. Quite a few people around it jump.

Not Rey though. She responds by slamming her own fist down.

“Why are you so bloody stubborn?” she shouts. “You obviously need help!”

_I am not asking the Resistance for help. It’s not happening, Rey._

_Do you remember what you said about lying to ourselves?_

_What does this have to do – _

_It does, because you are doing it now! You are telling yourself this nice story of how you came here to get closure and get the Resistance off your back._

_It’s true. That was my objective. I hadn’t planned what happened between us last night – _

_No, it’s not true, Ben. You came here because you knew, deep down, that you needed help. My help and your mother’s help. You just wouldn’t ask for it._

They stare each other down, and the eyes of everyone in the room are on them.

_I didn’t. _

_You did. Because you know there is no other way. Why don’t you just be honest with yourself and admit it? _

“Excuse me, what is going on here?” Dameron interrupts the silence that stretches a bit too long. “Are you two playing some weird power game? Because nobody is saying anything –”

“He and I have a Force bond,” Rey explains.

“A what now?”

“A Force bond. It does many things… for example, we can appear to each other at distance… but also, we can speak to each other in our minds. So that’s what we’ve been doing right now.”

“Kylo Ren can speak to you in your mind?” FN asks emphatically and Kylo has to resist again the impulse of choking him to death.

“We will talk about it some other time, Finn,” Rey says.

“So what have you been saying to each other in your minds?” Leia inquires with a note of amusement in her voice. She looks at Kylo and he feels like a boy again, embarrassed because his mother caught him.

It is highly infuriating.

_Just say you need her help._

_What help? Rag tag X-wings, the Millennium Falcon, and one or two rusty ancient cruisers you managed to scavenge from some obscure dump? I’ll pass_.

_Oh, you’re just so pathetic._

“The Resistance might not have a big army, but we have influence,” Rey states. “Your mother has influence. All over the galaxy.”

“I could activate my networks, Ben,” Leia says slowly. “Notify the allies of the Republic. Some of them have been helping the Resistance over the past year, others have so far preferred not to take the risk but once we have a ceasefire in force with you, they will join in, too. Against a threat of this magnitude, they will all rally. There are plenty of other fleets in the galaxy, those of the Core Worlds and of richer Mid-Rim worlds, such as Naboo. They are much smaller than yours but if we all stand together –”

“They will never accept my leadership,” Kylo barks. “And I will never accept anyone else as a commander-in-chief of an army in which the First Order plays the most important role. In the end, it’s just like with the Council. We can have representation, but there must be a leader. There must be one commander, too.”

“No, Ben, it’s not the same at all,” Leia replies calmly. “Commanding an army is nothing like governing the galaxy. In peacetime, choices have to be made via common agreement between the parties concerned, not by a dictator’s decree. But reaching an agreement takes time. At war, when quick action and split-second decisions are needed, there must be a chain of command and a top dog.”

“Exactly. And none of the former Republic worlds will ever agree to me commanding their fleets. I prefer not to have any help from them than to deal with the chaos in which everyone does whatever they want in an uncoordinated way. During the war, it will cause much more harm than good.”

“It would if it were to be this way,” Dameron agrees. “But it doesn’t have to be. I say, give some credit to General Organa and let her try to convince them.”

_Listen to him. Do it for me. For us._

_For us?_

_Do you want us to die on that ice planet? Do you want all your fleet to be blown up to pieces?_

_The First Order is not as weak alone as you think_ _– _

“I insist,” Rey says.

Kylo wants to say no. He doesn’t need the fuss. Whatever help he can get is not worth the trouble. And nobody will agree to give him any, so it’s just a waste of time.

Was he really lying to himself, though? Was contacting his mother in reality a desperate cry for help? Did he seek her out so that she could plan this, and so that Rey could help him, and everyone could join in the fight?

But the Resistance fighting on the same side as the First Order? This is unthinkable.

“My lord,” General Daere says in a low voice.

Kylo has been staring at Rey in silence again. She is sitting on his mother’s right side today, her cheeks pink, her hair still a bit damp. Strength, hope, and determination emanate from her.

“Kylo,” Rey says, leaning forward, and it takes him – and her, too, judging by her suddenly surprised face – a few seconds to realise she actually said it aloud. He can almost hear everyone’s mental gasps at this sudden revelation of an unmistakable closeness, or at least familiarity, between the Supreme Leader and the last Jedi. Nobody else, apart from his mother, calls him by any of his names, and certainly nobody would dare to utter his name in such a soft way.

The atmosphere in the room is electric.

“We can beat him,” Rey argues hotly. “You and I, together. And we can win the war. Our fleets, together.”

Darth Sidious is more powerful than Kylo. He is also of course more powerful than Rey, who might be strong in the Force, but still has barely any training. Alone against Sidious, Kylo has little chance, and Rey even less.

But together…

Yes, he had been preparing to go down in a blaze of glory. He had been tormented by the remembrance of his crimes and had felt tired of sadness, loneliness, and always having to fight someone or something. Tired of quietly missing Rey and pretending he wasn’t.

But now…

He looks at her, remembering last night’s delirium, and for a moment lets himself get carried away and imagine – just imagine, _a life_, after all the nightmares are over and the mortal enemy is gone, and the biggest problem they have is the number of people in the new galactic Council, the problem he might be solving together with Rey –

It’s just a fantasy. The likelihood of one or both of them perishing is still much higher than that of winning. The odds are against them. But at this moment, after that night in her arms, Kylo finds himself unable to resist the power of imagination.

“How do we go about this alliance, then?” he asks, and Rey’s eyes light up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this hot + political chapter :-) I won’t be lying to you, it doesn’t mean it will be all plain sailing from now on. All the drama and angst are still to come.
> 
> I have added the total chapter count; it is still rather indicative, not set in stone - but it will be more or less that.
> 
> As usual, this author feels very happy (and humble) about the reception this story is getting. And as usual, rest assured that every comment gives me a whole lot of joy and will receive a reply. Thank you for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

“Ben,” his mother says from behind him.

They were just leaving the red tent after the morning’s negotiation and Kylo was going to his ship. As usual, it is too hot to walk at midday and too crowded in the mess hall, so the only place where he can be alone to digest the enormity of what he has just agreed to – _the military alliance with the bloody Resistance_ – not to mention the enormity of what happened last night with Rey, is his cool, silent, mercifully empty ship.

And as usual, someone prevents him from enjoying a quiet moment.

“Walk with me,” Leia suggests.

Kylo sighs and turns around to face her.

“Walk where? It’s blistering hot at this time of day.”

“It’s not that hot,” she replies cheerfully. “Or maybe it’s just that I’m always cold in my old age? Anyway, we could walk in the canyon. It’s shaded. Will you come with me?”

There is obviously no way to say no to this. And when he nods and starts walking, she takes his arm.

This is the first time they touch. First time since they arrived on Pasaana, first time for many years.

They walk in silence to the entrance of the canyon and Kylo is sweating in the relentless sun. Leia, for her part, looks thoughtful.

“I come here every evening,” she says. “Just after sunset. It’s a nice walk between these rocks. Sometimes I meet your people, too. Your student, for example. But never you.”

“I like to walk in the morning.”

“You always were a morning person.”

She smiles to herself.

“But it is really hot now,” she admits. “Perhaps we can sit somewhere?”

Kylo finds a rocky ledge hidden in the shadow of the canyon’s stone walls, on which they can both sit down, next to each other, like on a high bench. It’s not wide enough to allow sufficient distance between them, nor deep enough on Kylo’s side to accommodate his big frame, so he finds himself somewhat uncomfortably perched on the edge of it, but Leia looks content.

“We haven’t really talked,” Leia starts, letting go of his arm and turning to him.

“We talk all day.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Kylo says.

“We have to talk about it. You owe me this. You owe _him_ this.”

“Talking will not pay any debts here. What do you want to hear? That I regret? That I would give anything to have never done it?”

“No. That much I know. It’s obvious from the way you carry your sadness around with you.”

“So you want to know why I did it?”

“It’s not difficult to guess that Snoke made you.”

“It wasn’t just that. I thought it would finally end the conflict in me.”

“Well, it didn’t work, did it?”

“Maybe it did,” Kylo says. “Because it was in that moment that I realized he was right.”

“Who was right?”

Kylo is silent.

“Ah. You can’t even refer to him directly?” Leia asks, this time with some bitterness in her voice. “You can’t even say ‘my father’? He wasn’t a good father to you, I know. And I wasn’t a good mother. But he does deserve at least to be mentioned, don’t you think?”

Kylo inhales, preparing to say something, but in the end remains silent.

“So what was your father right about?”

“About Snoke. He said Snoke was using me and would destroy me in the end. I think I always knew it but when someone else said it… It started everything.”

Leia takes his hand and squeezes it. This time, they touch skin to skin and Kylo’s throat tightens. His mother’s hand is warm and dry.

“So he didn’t die for nothing,” she whispers and when he looks at her, she has tears in her eyes. “He did bring you home, like I asked him to. You just took the long way.”

There’s no point in arguing, saying it’s not exactly like that. No point in reminding her he still dislikes her cause and her Resistance, he is still dark, he still wants to stay at the helm of the First Order, and it won’t change.

Because, in the end, these things don’t really matter that much.

In his heart, in some way, _in his own way_, perhaps he has come home. At least he has let her in, or he has let her come closer than he thought he would ever again. He hasn’t actually even _let her_ – he orchestrated it himself. He sought her out, he came here to meet her. Rey says he did it deliberately, to ask for help.

“I missed you so much,” Leia says and reaches up to stroke his cheek, then his hair. “I missed my boy.”

“You didn’t seem to miss me so much when I was at Luke’s.”

“I did,” she argues. “I just thought it was best for you. I really thought so. If I had known…”

“That your brother would try to kill me?”

“I’m sorry, Ben,” she says and squeezes his hand again, then runs her thumb in circles on the back of it. It’s a very intimate touch, the kind of touch she used when he was little and had nightmares or lost his temper. It always soothed him. Rey stroked his hand like that a few days ago, just before they fell asleep together in her bed, connected by the bond.

“Whatever bad things you’ve done, however much you’ve lost yourself, part of the blame is on me. I made so many more mistakes than good decisions when it came to you. Han did, too. And Luke.”

“If I could,” Kylo says, his hand still in hers, “I would kill Luke, all over again. I hate him. I have reasons to hate him.”

“I know.”

“But father –” he stops and shakes his head.

“I’m so sorry,” he utters. “You have no idea how sorry I am, how I wish I could turn back time and be back on that catwalk, and make a different choice –”

Leia slides her arm under his. They are both crying now, mourning Han Solo and the whole life spent in a vicious circle of mistakes they have made or that have been made for them and against them.

But then Leia straightens up, turns to him again and takes his face in her hands.

“You can’t,” she says. “You can’t go back in time. But you can do other things, and you are doing them. You started the peace talks, you’ve done all these good things in the last year. And I see you sit patiently through all of this negotiation here – I know you don’t like my political opinions, you don’t like the Resistance, you don’t like diplomacy, and yet you keep coming to that tent. You don’t have to, we are not a threat to you, you don’t owe us this, and yet you do it. And it’s not just for Rey, is it?”

“No, it’s not just for Rey,” he says, before realizing it was a clever trap. How typical of Leia Organa. “Why would you think that?!”

His mother raises her eyes to his face and smiles.

“You were such a nervous boy, awkward, self-conscious about your looks, your behaviour,” she resumes after a moment. “Ashamed of your ears.”

She laughs, to Kylo’s horror.

“And look at you now,” she continues, running her hand along his shoulder and arm affectionately. “My son. My little boy, he is this tall, handsome, strong man now. And he rules the galaxy.”

Kylo scoffs and Leia chuckles.

“Let me be sentimental for once.”

She stops and coughs a few times.

“You’re ill,” Kylo says. “I can feel it in the Force. You’re not well. What is it?”

“I was shot out of my ship into space last year by one of your people. I saved myself with the Force, but I was never the same after that. Never mind. I have seen you now, I have touched you again, we have started the peace process, my work is done.”

“Are you out of your mind speaking like this? You’re not dying. I will send you my doctors, I will take you to my ship and they will help you –”

Leia laughs quietly.

“Now, that would be something,” she admits. “The Resistance General getting treated by the First Order!”

“We will have a ceasefire in force as of tomorrow. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you being treated on my ship.”

“I suppose so.”

This talking, this mutual caring, it feels good. But it also feels painful. It’s a sharp pain deep down in his chest that flares up whenever he thinks about his family too much.

So many years, wasted. And for what?

“So, about Rey,” Leia murmurs.

“What about her?”

She smiles and watches him carefully for a moment, then bursts out laughing.

“What?!”

“Your ears are getting red, Ben.”

* * *

It’s the end of the afternoon and Finn is having a snooze in his room. They agreed to finalise the ceasefire and the new military agreement tomorrow morning, so tonight the Aki-Aki are organizing a celebratory dinner for the two delegations. Small tables with platters of food and various drinks will be set up in front of the red tent in the evening, under the starry sky.

Ren was late for the afternoon session of the negotiation, and Leia with him. If it’s going so well that they spend the midday break together, there is no doubt there will be an agreement. Finn is glad, of course; the end of the war is near. But he will be even more glad to finally hightail it out of here and never see this guy’s face again.

It’s the face he sees in his nightmares.

It’s also clear that Rey and Kylo Ren share some kind of understanding. Finn doesn’t want to be resentful about that. Rey is his best friend and he tries to see it from her perspective; it must be hard for her not to have anyone in the Resistance with whom she can train or even talk about these Force things. In some way, it’s really obvious that she and Ren could become close.

In some way. In another way, Finn still can’t accept it. His head understands it, but his heart can’t take it. Whenever he sees Rey interact with the man who killed Han Solo in cold blood, Finn gets angry. Angry and nauseous. The sight of Kylo Ren makes him sick.

And terrified, unfortunately. The man ignores him completely after their showdown a few days ago, but it seems forced.

Fortunately it will be over soon.

The rest of the First Order delegation are actually not that bad. Finn is friends with all the troopers; the officers, and especially the two main ones, Daere and Croos, are quite decent people. And Ren’s little student, the Cerean, is now always with them at mealtimes. She has apparently even trained with Rey once. Perhaps it would be nice to take the poor girl back with them to Espirion so that Rey could have another Force-sensitive friend?

It seems, however, that Rey might not be going back to Espirion, or not for long. She and Ren did mention they would be training together. Finn hasn’t asked Rey for any details. He hasn’t spoken to her in private since his violent row with Ren. He prefers to avoid asking her straight away – as he would have to do if they were alone – what exactly is going on between her and Ren.

Finn is very afraid of the answer to that question. Not that he has romantic feelings for Rey, but the thought of her being involved with Ren, of all people, seems monstrous. It would be her ruin.

He floats in and out of sleep and his thoughts become blurred, distorted, threatening.

A sudden knocking on his door jolts him awake. Confused, he blinks a few times and tries to shake the sleep off as he gets up and walks to the door. When he opens it, he finds Kylo Ren outside, like a black spectre, his huge body filling the whole doorframe.

Stalking Finn.

Coming to take revenge for what happened between them a few days ago.

Finn’s heart rate shoots up, the hair stands on his arms, his whole body screams “danger”. He slams the door in Ren’s face and bolts it, then grabs his blaster from a chair. He looks back towards the window, assessing his chances of getting out that way. It’s the ground floor and the window is big –

The door behind him flies open, the bolt shattering, and Ren storms in like a fury.

Finn fires straight into his chest. One, two, three shots. Ren extends his hand and stops them all mid-air, then sends them to the ground.

“Get out of here!” Finn yells. Usually he is much braver. He was braver when he attacked Ren on Starkiller, and also here on Pasaana when he yelled at him. But now, he’s just woken up, they’re in confined space, there’s nobody else here, no easy way out, and there can be only one reason for Ren to come to his room.

To kill him.

“Rey will find out about this,” Finn barks as he backs away and Ren stomps towards him. “She will find out you did it, she will kill you before you manage to hurt her too –”

Ren comes so close Finn can feel his breath on his face; he towers over him, dark and menacing. He fishes something out of the folds of his tunic and slams it against Finn’s chest.

“This is for you, you asshole,” he hisses.

What?

“You cockroach,” Ren continues fiercely, shoving Finn back so hard that the other man staggers and hits the wall. “You shoot people before you ask questions, and yet _I am a rotten piece of shit_?! I should have killed you back on Starkiller.”

“What do you want?!” Finn manages.

“Next time, you’ll get these blaster bolts back in your face,” Ren yells, grabbing the front of Finn’s jacket and shaking him so violently it makes Finn’s teeth rattle.

“What… what is it?” Finn stammers, looking at what Ren threw at him, which he’s now holding in his own hands. It is a paper file. He opens it and finds several pages covered with print, but he can’t read anything, the letters dance in front of his eyes, he is too angry, too shocked, too confused to think straight.

“Your stormtrooper file, you shithead. The information about your origins. You are from Lothal. Your parents lived there. Your sister is a captain on a First Order star destroyer.”

There is suddenly a stony silence in the room. Ren lets go of him and Finn tries to say something – because he _doesn’t understand_ – but finds himself shaking. His whole body suddenly escapes his control.

“What?” he repeats, his heart drumming in his chest. His blood pressure must be over the roof because his head feels as if it was to explode. Perhaps Ren is doing this to him?

No, it’s not –

What did he say, again?

Finn looks down at the page he’s holding. There is his photo on it. In fact there are two photos, one of a small boy – no more than four – and the other of him as an adult. That one must have been taken a year or two ago. There is also a lot of text, and names, and suddenly he’s panting and sweating. He leans against the wall behind him, black spots blurring his vision, bile coming up to his throat. He reaches out and grabs something, which turns out to be Ren’s arm –

When he opens his eyes again a moment later and lets go of Ren, the other man’s fury seems to have evaporated. He stands in front of Finn silently.

“My parents?” Finn manages. “My sister? I have a sister?”

Ren nods.

Finn bursts out crying. He cries like he has never cried before in his life. The First Order training, the Jakku massacre, the Starkiller forest, the Crait stunt, and one year of hiding and secret operations with the Resistance, it’s all out now, it’s all in this cry. And much more. He doesn’t remember – he can’t remember, he has tried so many times and failed, and even now that he has the picture, he still can’t really remember the little boy in it. The little boy he was when he got kidnapped from his home. He doesn’t remember the parents and the sister. But it is his face looking back at him from the pages of the First Order document.

He scans quickly the page, then the next one, through his tears, and there it is, his sister’s code – JN-3489 – and her chosen name, Jannah.

The other troopers told him they all had names now. They usually chose them because most of them were kidnapped so long ago they didn’t remember their real names anymore, and these had not been kept in the First Order’s records. Like Finn, they often chose names linked to the letters of their code within the Order.

However, they didn’t tell him they got to know their origins. They must have agreed not to do it in order to spare him the pain.

Finn raises his eyes to Kylo Ren who is still watching him in silence.

“Do you know if my parents are alive?”

“No, I don’t,” Ren says slowly. “We would have to check that for all troopers, it’s a matter of resources… but everyone was given leave so that they could go and check for themselves. To visit their worlds and find their families.”

“My sister is alive though? Are you sure?”

“She is alive. From a stormtrooper, she rose to the rank of captain.”

“She knows about me?”

“She will find out. We are doing it gradually. She will receive her file soon.”

Finn looks at him and clutches the file to his chest.

“Right,” Ren says and turns away slowly. “I guess I will leave you to it.”

“Wait,” Finn says, and the other man stops and looks back at him.

“I don’t know how to –” Finn starts and stalls, then exhales slowly. He feels like sitting down and crying for the whole day, reading his file one thousand times, reading his sister’s name over and over again.

“Thank you,” he says.

Ren nods, stands there for a second longer than necessary, then leaves, closing the door behind him very quietly.

Finn turns the page. On the next one, there is a picture of a little girl – aged six or so – and next to that another one, of a young woman.

A woman in a First Order uniform, with an unruly mop of black curly hair, all around her head like an aureole. A fierce look, a determined face in which he thinks he can discern his own features.

His sister Jannah.

* * *

Back in his room, Kylo locks the door and throws himself on the bed.

He should have guessed what FN’s reaction would be. Well, he did guess a little; this is why he went to FN’s room rather than approach him in public, which would probably earn him slightly less hostility, but would cause a bigger scene. When the traitor – _Finn_ – saw Kylo enter his room, of course he thought Kylo was coming to kill him.

So, it became more intense than Kylo would have wished.

At the end of it, however, for the first time ever, he felt something else than pure hatred and fury at FN, even though thirty seconds earlier he was almost ready to give up and just kill him, smash him with these blaster bolts instead of directing them to the ground.

At the end of it, he felt – moved.

FN was in such a shock that he almost passed out. For a moment, he looked insane. He even grabbed Kylo’s arm – _he held on to him_ – as if it was a friend standing before him, or at least another human being who could offer some comfort.

Kylo didn’t expect such a meltdown, though maybe he should have. Surely the other troopers told FN about these files? Three months after the beginning of this operation, most troopers and those officers who started as troopers have already received the information about their origins.

Some thanked Kylo personally. He has been spontaneously addressed by them a few times, and once he even got stopped by a group in the _Finalizer_’s corridor. It might have saved his life during the coup; it could have well been the decisive factor that made so many troopers stay loyal to Kylo and turn on Hux.

But FN-2187 was the first trooper – _ex-trooper_ – to whom Kylo handed the file in person, and of course the only one who received a hard copy rather than a message on his datapad.

It felt weird to give it to him. Weird but good. Almost. Sort of.

Kylo asked for FN’s file when he learnt FN was coming to Pasaana. He wanted to give it to Rey or to Leia, but after he and FN almost had a fight a few days ago, he decided to give it to him personally.

Why? He certainly didn’t want to be his friend. He didn’t care what FN thought of him. And yet… the traitor called him a rotten piece of shit, in front of Rey, and these words stung.

Kylo finds himself wondering if FN’s parents are alive. Both children kidnapped, at such a young age. Did these people have other children?

Kylo almost killed him, and almost got killed himself – well, not really, but he would have if he didn’t have the Force. They almost killed each other while one was bringing good news to the other. This is the legacy of Kylo Ren. When people see him on their doorstep, their first reaction is to shoot.

Some time ago, his immediate response would be to strike back, and he would strike to kill.

Someone bangs on his door and for a moment Kylo thinks anxiously it might be FN. He has no idea what to tell him. He would feel uneasy even looking at the man now.

But it’s Rey, and as soon as he opens the door, she flings herself into his arms and kisses him furiously. She is trembling, laughing and crying at the same time, her face wet, her eyes swollen.

“Kylo!” she breathes and kisses him some more. He waves his hand to close the door, embarrassed that someone might see them, and she might come to regret it later.

“Rey, what –”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she whispers, punctuating each of those with a kiss. She seems so moved, and so happy, it must be because of FN.

“Rey,” Kylo murmurs, pulling her to him, but she pulls away again, because she wants to look at him.

“I will never forget that,” she says, clutching at the front of his tunic. “I’ll never forget what you did for him. He hated you – insulted you – and you did this for him, Kylo –”

“We do it for every trooper, it’s a standard procedure –”

Rey laughs and squeezes him in her arms so hard his ribs actually hurt a bit.

“Parents, and a sister! A sister!” she exclaims, her eyes glazed over, as she looks somewhere beyond him, suddenly immersed in reverie, her eyes full of tears.

And Kylo cradles her in his arms, kissing her forehead as she starts sobbing, because he knows she is crying out of happiness for her friend, but not just because of that.

If only he had a file to give to her, with names of siblings, other members of the family, perhaps grandparents, with information on where she came from. If only he could give her something else than the bitter truth he screamed at her in Snoke’s throne room one year ago: that her parents were nobodies, sold her for drinking money, and were now long dead.

_But you can_, a voice inside him whispers, a quiet, calm voice that used to tell Kylo to question the wisdom of Snoke’s decisions. It went silent when Kylo ran Han Solo through with his lightsaber and came back when his Force bond sessions with Rey started.

_You have something to give her. _

_The belonging she seeks is not behind her – it is ahead._

* * *

In the evening the tables are set out in front of the red tent, courtesy of the Aki-Aki, and the celebration can start. There are forty people, the two delegations, and if this dinner had taken place at the very beginning, just after they arrived on Pasaana, it would have been a nightmare, Rey thinks.

She would never suspect the hostility and contempt between the two sides would subside so soon. A few days only have passed since the beginning of the talks, but it’s already quite usual for the two groups to mix at mealtimes. Finn is always with the troopers, and Rose often joins them. Leia and Poe are by now quite friendly with Daere and Croos, and their discussions continue long after the working sessions. Saar-Yen-Dii comes to eat with everyone in the mess hall and most often sits by Rey’s side. Rey likes it; it’s as if she had a little sister (though much taller than herself) to look after.

Kylo is never part of that. He hasn’t had a single meal in the mess hall with all of them. Except for the negotiation meetings, this dinner is his first appearance in a larger gathering here on Pasaana.

There are drinks and short speeches by Commander D’Acy and Admiral Croos. There is the clinking of glasses. The mood is perhaps not exuberant – they might not be enemies anymore, but they are not exactly friends either, and the prospect of another war is looming. Nevertheless, there is a certain camaraderie, an air of mutual gratitude for being constructive and mutual satisfaction as to the results. There is civility, respect, and strong awareness of a common purpose. In the end, nothing unites people more effectively than a common enemy.

After a time, everyone disperses into smaller groups, either sitting by the tables or standing around. There are piles of hot and cold snacks and a long buffet with various drinks.

Kylo is standing with Daere, Croos and Leia, but remains slightly apart from the rest of them, and Rey can feel his turmoil in the Force. There is no reason for it – it’s just his extreme social inaptitude. She herself is not a party animal but he really feels, and looks, uncomfortable.

And yet he is a military leader and a politician, who must be receiving other leaders and diplomatic envoys all the time.

_Yeah, I hate it all. All of the time._

He’s listening in again.

_Have you ever thought of, you know, changing jobs? Maybe being a public figure is not your vocation._

_Or I should wear the mask again. That’s easier._

He peers at her from the distance. She is sitting with Finn, Poe, and two troopers, barely listening to what they’re saying.

_Why don’t you come over here? The conversation is easier._

_Trust me, it will end the instant I arrive. It always does._

He’s probably not wrong.

But a few moments later, when the groups have moved around a bit, the two of them find themselves much closer to each other and he just needs to take two paces forward in order to step into the circle where she is standing. He does that and for a moment, silence falls. Through the bond, Rey can feel his annoyance; she can almost feel his fists clenching at his sides.

“Are you leaving tomorrow early afternoon, then?” Poe asks Kylo casually, interrupting the silence. Poe, who was initially very critical of the idea of peace talks, has come around very quickly once he realised it is not a trap. Poe can actually be very constructive and pragmatic in diplomatic situations, unlike when he’s in his X-wing and his fantasy, or excessive bravery, takes over. Before these talks, Rey never believed he could be a good candidate for a leader, if ever Leia decided to pass on the relay. Now she can see him growing into the role surprisingly well.

“We are,” Kylo Ren confirms in a somewhat tense voice. The two troopers who were laughing just a moment ago now stand in a respectful posture. They are not exactly afraid. But yes, he casts a shadow. People straighten up, conversations die down, everyone starts paying attention when he is close.

“We will be going back to Espirion too,” Finn speaks, out of the blue. It’s not the most original line; it’s fairly obvious they will be going back to their base.

But – the two of them are talking. Kind of. Almost.

“Finn will be going to Lothal very soon,” Rey interjects, and the two men stare at each other for a moment, before Kylo nods.

“That’s good,” he says. “I hope… it goes well.”

It’s Finn’s turn to nod now.

“Thank you again,” he replies and for a second everyone is silent and busy looking the other way.

It’s enough. It’s as much as Kylo can take for now. Rey gives him a little sign with her head and they move a few steps away discreetly, then a few more, until they are more or less alone, or at least out of everyone’s hearing range.

They sit together at one of the small tables and Kylo starts to play distractedly with the hem of the white table cloth. Rey takes a plate and piles little snacks onto it.

“The food here has been unbelievable,” she says, her mouth already full. “These green algae they grow in those high tanks in the city… I have seen the pictures… I’ve never tasted anything quite like that.”

Kylo almost smiles.

“Not that I am picky,” she admits, stuffing her mouth again happily.

“What happens now, Rey? What’s the next move?” Kylo asks.

She chews her food, buying time. He is waiting.

“I thought we agreed to train together,” she says, and it comes out more defensive than she intended.

“We did. Sort of. But I have no time to take a month off and train with you on some remote planet, Rey. We need to advance. Find Palpatine before he finds us. Find my Knights who disappeared two months ago. And we need to start forming this alliance you and my mother want so much.”

Rey nods.

“So what do you propose?”

“Come onto my ship,” he suggests tensely, not looking at her.

Rey wants to say no before she can think about it. Her instinct screams no. But it’s an old instinct, from the times when they were enemies and when the First Order was all bad. From the times when she rejected his offer in the throne room because it was impossible to accept.

Still, she finds the thought of it uncomfortable. It’s one thing to be here on Pasaana with them, two small groups discussing the conditions of an alliance. It’s something else altogether to find herself alone on a First Order star destroyer, full of First Order people, with Kylo Ren.

What will his people say?

What will her friends and the rest of the Resistance say?

How will it be between the two of them? Training during the day, lovers at night?

“So your plan is to go to the Unknown Regions where you sent your Knights and look for Palpatine’s base?”

“That’s the only lead we have. If we do nothing and wait for him to strike, I feel something really bad will happen.”

“But this is what he wants. He wants us to go and find him.”

“And we have no choice, Rey. We have to go. Do you remember that red beam from our visions?”

“You think he has a superweapon?”

“He might have one. Or he might just have a huge fleet tucked away somewhere on a remote moon and he’ll attack us by surprise. It doesn’t need to be as dramatic as a superweapon cataclysm.”

“What do you think happened to your Knights?”

“I wish I knew,” Kylo says, his head hung down. He looks sad. It’s the last night, the short interlude is over. They have to face reality now.

“All right,” Rey decides. “I will come onto your ship. When?”

“I need a few days to deal with some internal matters. One week at most. Will have to make a few trips. Then I’ll come to get you at your base.”

She nods and washes her meal down with a glass of water, then wipes her mouth. Kylo raises an eyebrow and Rey remembers, mortified, her bad table manners that Poe and Finn always poke fun at. This is the first time he can see her eating –

“You haven’t been fully honest with me,” Kylo says suddenly. “You still haven’t told me about this dream you have.”

“I will tell you,” Rey replies hurriedly, looking away. “When we start training together. I will.”

“A vision is just that, Rey. It’s a vision. If you saw something bad, something that terrified you, it doesn’t mean it will necessarily come true.”

Rey nods. They sit in silence for a moment; the party continues in the background and nobody comes to disturb them.

“It’s quite different to see the stars from here,” Kylo utters, looking up. “Somehow, they look more beautiful. On a ship, it doesn’t feel that way.”

“I used to look at the stars a lot when I lived on Jakku, sitting on the sand in front of my home. Dreaming I would go away one day and see the rest of the galaxy.”

It would be nice to watch the stars from a home on a planet, he thinks and Rey realizes he’s not talking to her in his mind, as they usually do. He doesn’t want her to hear this. He just can’t help projecting it.

Why doesn’t he want her to hear it? Why shouldn’t they have dreams? Is he so pessimistic about this simple dream – having a home and looking up at the stars – ever coming true?

“Go mingle, Rey,” he says. “I will take a walk.”

“To watch the stars?”

“Perhaps to sit somewhere and meditate.”

He doesn’t invite her to come along. Maybe he doesn’t want to give the Resistance or the First Order reasons for talking behind their backs. Or maybe it’s something else. The premonition of a disaster, the awareness that is growing heavier and heavier, and that he doesn’t want to burden her with.

“Will you be coming to my room later?” Rey asks.

“If you want me.”

Not ‘if you want me to’, but ‘if you want me’. I do, she wants to say, but it sounds too serious. Too needy. So she only nods and he departs into the dark.

She watches him walk away on the sand under the stars, and even when she can hardly discern his silhouette in the distance anymore, great sadness still seems to emanate from him. He walks slightly hunched, the weight of the whole galaxy on his shoulders.

* * *

They depart the next day after midday. Kylo and his people are ready to board the Upsilon-class shuttle, while the Resistance delegation are still busy packing, but everyone comes out to say goodbye officially.

They have signed a declaration outlining the main principles on which they want to build a peace treaty and a new galactic governance model in the future. This document will go public on the holonet tonight. They have also signed a confidential military agreement, on the basis of which Leia will now start contacting the allies of the Republic, acting as an intermediary between them and Kylo. The Resistance is now the Order’s first official ally.

Nobody knows yet how this will play out. Will anyone buy it or will Leia be accused of being a traitor to the Republic? Kylo, in his turn, might have hard time selling this plan to his people. They are all taking a risk.

“Rey,” Kylo says, pausing at the bottom of his shuttle’s ramp.

“Ben.”

They spoke those names again in the darkness of last night, in each other’s arms, passionate and breathless. Now they utter them in a different way but with no less emotion.

“In a few days, no more than a week, expect me,” he says.

“I will.”

She remains calm but a storm is raging inside her. There’s this completely irrational fear that he will not come back. He will decide to protect her at all costs, there will be no training and no alliance, he will go alone to face Darth Sidious down and perish, and she’ll never see him again.

There’s also a somewhat shameful realization that she will miss him. She, the Resistance’s Jedi, will miss Kylo Ren. A few days and nights together, and suddenly it seems that one week without him will be too difficult to bear. She will not admit to it. She will not tell him that.

“Time to go,” he says rather softly and touches her arm lightly.

“Is that it? Is this how we say goodbye?”

“Your friends are watching, Rey. I can’t kiss you.”

It strikes her that he doesn’t mention the First Order at all. Only the Resistance.

Of course. He doesn’t care what his people think. Already one year ago, he wanted to rule the galaxy with her by his side, he wanted them to be together publicly. He is the Supreme Leader, he can afford to not care. He doesn’t need to justify himself to anyone. But then again, Kylo has always had this attitude – he really doesn’t care, whatever his position, what other people think of him. This has good and bad sides, but Rey would like to be more like him in this respect.

But why does _she_ care so much? Why does she dread what Poe, Finn, Rose, and all the rest of the Resistance, especially those who don’t know her so well and who hate Kylo Ren with all their heart, would say if they knew –

They all look at her and see someone else. A beacon of hope, a noble Jedi, a Light-side warrior, waving her saber and lifting rocks, an embodiment of all the good in the galaxy, carrying the torch for the future generations. A promise of victory and peace. She is one of those things that have helped the Resistance get through the worst of times, because to them she is not Rey but an idea, a concept, something that makes them dream.

Something Rey is not and doesn’t know how to be.

She steps forward and wraps her arms around him. Kylo responds immediately, also enclosing her in his embrace.

“People keep telling me they know me. No one does.”

“But I do,” he murmurs into her hair.

They stay like this for a moment, hugging each other, then separate and look at each other one last time.

“May the Force be with you, Rey.”

“And with you.”

She watches him ascend the ramp, his black cloak swirling in the hot desert wind behind him. Then the hatch closes and he’s gone.

* * *

He thinks he knows her.

_Does he?_

She didn’t tell him about the dream, even though by now he has asked several times. Rey always manages to evade the question. If she told him what she dreams about, he might not come back for her. He might feel it was his fault. He might think that if this vision ever came true, it would be because of him.

And he would be wrong. Rey has enough of her own darkness. But he probably knows that – so perhaps, if he knew about the vision, he might start considering her as a threat, someone that cannot be trusted in the trials ahead of them.

The dream comes back from time to time, on its own or with the other images sent by Palpatine: the red beam, the cackling. But it’s _that__ vision_ that Rey remembers the most vividly when she wakes up.

She can see herself and, at the same time, she is the person she sees, as if she was inside and outside her body at the same time. She recognises herself even though her face, hard and impenetrable, with tightly pressed lips and a square jaw, looks different. She is wearing a dark cloak and a hood. Her surroundings are dark but the image of herself is clear and vibrant. This image is now burnt under Rey’s eyelids for ever.

She is holding a hilt of a lightsaber and when she activates it, twin beams spring to life. She shifts the hilt in her palm and the beams open up into a saberstaff.

The blades are red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More than 200 kudos! Of course numbers are not everything, I know it very well, and often one nice comment can make the author’s week and give the best encouragement. Having said that, it is fantastic to see that more than 200 people like this story. Thank you very much for your support and feedback, and stay with me – there is more heart-wrenching content to come! How did you like the glimpse of dark Rey, by the way? And the Finn & Kylo moment?


	9. Chapter 9

As soon as Kylo’s shuttle disappears from the sky and Rey turns around to walk back to the shelter, she can feel a shift in the atmosphere around her.

The Resistance people disperse silently, in a hurry that seems forced. Most of them avoid looking her in the eye. There’s no hostility but there is definitely some tension. Embarrassment hangs in the air.

Something has changed, and it has changed because she hugged Kylo Ren before he left.

At the entrance to the shelter, Poe is waiting for her, leaning against the stone wall, his hands in his pockets, a friendly smile on his lips. Finn next to him looks much less relaxed, but not angry.

“Can I talk to you for a few minutes, Rey?” Poe asks. He sounds kind and respectful but it’s a rhetorical question. Poe is practically her commanding officer, second to Leia only. When he says he wants to talk, they talk.

They sit in the mess hall, empty now. Poe brings a jug of water and glasses. Rey stays perched uncomfortably on the edge of her chair as if it was an interrogation.

“I’m going to be direct about this, Rey,” Poe says, pouring water for everyone. “We are friends and I want to talk as a friend, but then you could tell me it’s none of my business. So I also need to say it as a Resistance commander.”

“So say it,” Rey mutters.

“Everyone has noticed you and Ren have become close. People are not blind. And we all understand the two of you have lots of things that bring you together. Now you’re also going to train with him. But may I ask how close you two really are?”

Rey’s heart beats fast, painfully, at such a blunt question which she cannot really evade, but she will try anyway.

“It’s difficult to answer that, Poe. We’ve only spent a few days together. This is the first time we’re not enemies.”

Poe nods.

“I understand. But do you trust him, Rey?”

This takes Rey completely by surprise.

“Don’t you?” she asks, dumbfounded. “You insisted on the alliance as much as Leia and I. Why push for it if you don’t trust him?”

“I have to trust him, Rey. Our best chance to come out alive of a war with Palpatine is to join forces with Ren. There is no other choice and we have to make the best of it. But you, in your personal interactions, have plenty of other choices. It’s not absolutely necessary for you two to be… so close.”

Rey looks down at the table and picks at her nails.

“I just feel a personal bias might make you more inclined to trust him than you’d normally be,” Poe adds, gently, careful not to offend or overstep (or is it just a ruse?). “And I fear he might take advantage of it.”

“So you still think so badly of him?”

“I don’t. I recognize all the efforts he has made in the past year, and he has shown good will during the negotiations. I don’t agree with his political views but that’s not a problem. That’s democracy. He’s definitely a good ally to have. But in the end, Rey, his past deeds cannot be erased, and the only reason he won’t be prosecuted for them is that there isn’t any Republic structure left to do so. He might mean well, but he’s still the same dangerous and unpredictable man, wielding a power that has almost no equal.”

“This would still be the case whether he and I were close or not.”

“Yes. But it may get infinitely more complicated if there are romantic feelings involved.”

“Complicated how?” Rey asks, leaning towards him. She is really fed up with this conversation but also very anxious to hear where this is heading.

“What if he feels more for you than you do for him? What if he wants something you don’t want to give or promise him? What then if you two fall out, and it will endanger the whole alliance? Finally, what if he’s just manipulating you, trying to bend the Resistance to his will through you?”

“You find me so pliant when I’m with him?” Rey raises her voice. “You found me pliant during the negotiation?”

“No. But now I hear you’re going to his ship. Staying away from us, spending all the time with him. Are you sure you will be able to keep the Resistance perspective in that place, especially if you become… even closer to him?”

“Are you asking about my loyalty to the Resistance, Poe, or are you suggesting he’ll seduce me to the dark side?” Rey inquires and her own voice sounds completely foreign to her. Finn hasn’t said one word so far but he looks very worried as he listens to them anxiously.

“What I’m trying to say, Rey, is that we need a safeguard, a fail-safe solution. You are the only one who can challenge Ren in combat. We need you to make sure that he continues to fulfil the conditions of our alliance. And to do this you cannot afford to be biased.”

“I am not biased.”

“What if Palpatine convinces him to join him? You can’t exclude this. I don’t know anything about the Force, but they are both dark siders, aren’t they?”

Rey shakes her head. Poe continues, unphased:

“And what if then Ren asks you to join them, and you will find it difficult to refuse because you’ll be in love with him? What if you don’t even see it all coming because of your feelings for him?”

“You really think I’m so stupid? So desperate for someone’s attention?”

“Come on, Rey,” Poe says, finally shedding his polite and smooth façade and appearing impatient. “We are all on the same side now. I’m just wondering if you can guarantee he will stay on our side, and if your ability to keep him in check is not compromised.”

“So what is it that you’re really asking me to do? Speak plainly.”

“All right then,” Poe says and his eyes harden as he straightens up. “I want to hear that if it comes to this, you will not hesitate to do what needs to be done. If he wavers – if he yields to the temptation and joins Palpatine, or if there is a danger it might happen – you will not hesitate to take him out.”

She knew it. She knew what he wanted, and yet hearing it is such a shock that for a moment Rey can’t utter a word, just stares at her two friends in silence.

“To kill him?” she manages in the end. “You want me… to kill him?”

“Rey,” Finn speaks softly, taking her hand. She feels like tearing it away but she is numb with shock, so in the end she lets him. “_We don’t want to kill him_. I certainly don’t, not anymore, not after what he did for me. I am indebted to him now. Plus, we signed an alliance with him. We are the Resistance, we don’t betray our allies! But it is true that he is a very dangerous man, and the confrontation with Palpatine might turn out in many different ways. Kylo Ren might… not be himself any more.”

“Or rather, he may become the worst version of himself,” Poe clarifies, his brow furrowed.

“And how do you know the same thing won’t happen to me?” Rey asks.

That silences them for a moment. They exchange puzzled glances.

“Well, everything is possible, but I should hope it would be more difficult with you,” Poe replies slowly. “If any of you two joins Palpatine, it will be Ren rather than you. I think it stands to reason.”

Yes, it does. Kylo and his yellow eyes. Kylo and his murderous track record. And she – she went straight to the dark on Ahch-To, as Luke said, and now she dreams a dark vision of herself, but it’s not enough to claim she would be as easily corrupted by the dark side as Kylo Ren.

“I have to hear it from you, Rey. Should the need arise – should he become a danger to you and to our cause, and I truly hope it doesn’t happen – you will eliminate him, notwithstanding your personal relationship.”

Poe is right, they are all right. This is the kind of safeguard that is needed. And she is the only person who can provide it.

“I will do what needs to be done,” Rey says, looking away. “Now, if you excuse me, I have to go.”

She stands up abruptly and leaves them before any of the two has a chance to protest. She practically runs away from the mess hall.

She is a traitor. A traitor to Kylo and a traitor to the Resistance. But mostly, a traitor to herself.

* * *

“General, can I talk to you?” Rey asks when Leia opens the door. The older woman doesn’t reply and doesn’t wait for her to come in; she returns to her chair by the window, sits down and gazes outside.

Perhaps she’s missing her son already?

Rey closes the door behind her and takes the other chair close to Leia.

“I would like to stay here and wait for Ben rather than go back to Espirion. I think it will do me good to be alone for a few days.”

Leia doesn’t say anything and doesn’t turn to her, so Rey continues.

“I have been questioned by Poe about my relationship with Ben. I feel it’s healthier for everyone if I don’t show my face on the base for some time.”

“You told me a few days ago Ben was dangerous,” Leia says suddenly, still not moving. “You said Palpatine might have got to him, you told me about the yellow eyes. What has changed?”

“We talked. It’s complicated. Things are not as they seemed to me a few days ago.”

Leia nods and finally turns her face to Rey.

“You’re crying!” Rey exclaims. “What happened? Is it because of Ben’s departure?”

“What did Poe want from you?” Leia inquires.

“Poe asked me to promise I would kill Ben if it was needed.”

“He did what?!”

“He didn’t like it that we were getting close. He thinks it will stop me from reacting in the right way if Ben should become a danger. For example, if he turns on us and joins Palpatine.”

“And? Will it stop you?” Leia asks, and Rey is taken aback. She expected the General to dismiss the threat as absurd.

“How can you ask me this? He’s your son –”

“Yes, Rey. This is why I could never go on this mission with him, even if I had the powers you have. I couldn’t kill him, whatever happens. Could you?”

“I said I would.”

“Were you being honest?”

“I don’t know,” Rey says begrudgingly. She came here to feel better, to hear from Leia that she trusts her son now and that she will reprimand Poe.

Leia watches her for a moment, her face sad and tired.

“You must remember one thing, Rey,” she resumes and there is an unmistakable commander-in-chief tone in her voice. “In the next weeks and months, Poe and I will be trying to convince leaders from all over the galaxy to strike an alliance with Ben and the First Order. I won’t be totally credible to those people because Ben is my son. But with you, it’s a different matter. It will be important for them to see that the last Jedi trusts him. This will reassure them if nothing else does. And for this to work, it’s best if you keep your relationship with Ben private. Once you reveal you have feelings for him, your credibility will also be compromised.”

“Who said I had a relationship with him?” Rey challenges. Hearing people discuss her private matters is embarrassing and makes her feel uncomfortable. “Everyone assumes plenty of things about us.”

“So take care that our potential allies do not assume the same.”

Rey is silent.

“I know there are too many expectations on you,” Leia says in a gentler tone. “It’s hard, and it’s definitely not fair. You have a right to your own life, and you certainly don’t need anyone’s permission to have a relationship with whomever you want. But Rey, this is too important. There are some causes that are more important than us and our lives –”

Well, maybe if Leia Organa hadn’t devoted so much time and energy to one or another of her causes, and had paid more attention to her son, the galaxy wouldn’t be in this dire place today, Rey thinks but silences the thought. It’s not fair to blame Leia for all that turned out badly in Ben’s life, as if he hadn’t made his own choices. It’s certainly not fair to blame Leia for the situation in which they find themselves today because Palpatine’s return is neither her nor Ben’s fault.

In the end, there’s no point in arguing. Rey needs to stay away from them for some time, and not just to avoid ill-intentioned gossip. In the confrontation to come, she is much more than a member of the Resistance, just like Kylo is more than the leader of the First Order. First and foremost, they are the two most powerful Force users in the galaxy, preparing to fight the ultimate evil. The most important alliance must be between the two of them. All other loyalties are secondary.

At least until one of them sides with Palpatine and turns on the other, as Poe has suggested. Leia doesn’t seem to be willing to discuss that but she doesn’t dismiss it, as Rey hoped she would. Which means she admits the possibility, if only theoretically.

Nobody believes in Ben. Of course, everyone has reasons not to believe in him, but still, how sad it must be for him to know that everyone always expects the worst from him – in stark contrast to Rey, from whom everyone expects the best.

She wonders what they would all say if she told them about the vision in which she wields a saberstaff with red blades.

“This morning Ben gave me something,” Leia says suddenly. “For Chewie. Do you want to see it?”

This is a surprise. Kylo didn’t mention it to Rey last night… but then again, probably he knew his mother would tell her about it.

“Can I?”

“Well, he showed it to me, so I don’t think it’s confidential.”

Leia takes an envelope out of the drawer of her small desk. Inside, there is a sheet of very elegant paper, Rey notes, even if she doesn’t know much about these things. It’s nothing like the pages of the books she found in old star destroyers on Jakku or even the Jedi books she stole from Luke. This looks expensive.

It’s a drawing, made with a thin black pen. It depicts the interior of the _Falcon_. Three figures are sitting in the cockpit: Chewbacca, Han Solo – much younger than he was when Rey met him – and between them, a child, a boy with a mop of unruly hair. They appear to be having fun together. In the right bottom corner, there is a signature.

It is signed Ben Solo.

Rey is speechless.

“He said he made it while we were here,” Leia explains. “He always drew well, even as a little boy.”

“I didn’t even realize he knew how to draw,” Rey manages.

“He also liked calligraphy. He truly excelled at it. It calmed him. I didn’t know he took it up again…”

The drawing is beautifully made. He is really talented. How typical of him, to find another way of expressing the pain that Rey knows is eating him up rather than use words, rather than write to Chewie or comm him.

Kylo doesn’t do that. He gives Finn his stormtrooper file, he makes a drawing for Chewie, but he won’t breach the subject of the past in a conversation with them. He invites his mother to a negotiation rather than ask her for help and tell her he’s missed her. It is often difficult to communicate with him because of that, but this is what he is like, and Rey understands it now.

Between him and Rey, it’s even more complex. The codes are so much more nuanced and subtle, the defence mechanisms more elaborate. But then again, he’s not the only one to apply them. She does that, too.

Leia stands up, so Rey follows suit, and all of a sudden the older woman hugs her. It’s a very affectionate hug. She puts her hand on the back of Rey’s head and presses her cheek to Rey’s temple.

“Thank you for giving my son a chance, Rey,” Leia whispers and Rey can hear she’s crying again. “He needs it so much. I pray that he doesn’t waste it this time.”

* * *

After their departure, Rey breathes with relief. For the first time, she is so glad to be rid of her Resistance friends, and mortified to realize it.

There will be time to prove to them what needs to be proved. It will not be done with words and promises, but through what happens in the course of the war. For the time being, if they think badly of her, so be it. She needs to discover for herself what the right path is, and for now she is convinced she has chosen well.

She spends the first afternoon meditating in the canyon. It’s dead silent here and it does her good; she needs to clear her mind of all the information and emotions she has accumulated in the last days, to reconnect with the Force on a pure level, to ground herself and re-establish her distance to people and events.

But she also wants to meditate about what lies ahead, to solidify her sense of purpose and to reflect upon her place in all this.

An hour or so before the sunset, there is suddenly a commotion on the path behind her and when she looks up, she finds a group of the hosts, the Aki-Aki, facing her, their fork-like face appendages swaying slightly under their chins when they lower their heads to look at her.

They have remained discreet and distant during the negotiations. There is no conversation now, either. They spread out in silence on the ground around her, their backs to the rock, their colourful robes rustling. The one on her left, wearing bright red, takes Rey’s hand and gives her a sign to do the same to the person on her right. Everyone else in the chain follows until they’re all connected.

And this is it. Nobody moves or speaks again. Rey closes her eyes under the heat of the setting sun and her mind is flooded with peace and serenity. It is not that she doesn’t know these feelings or cannot access them on her own, but they are amplified now. The Aki-Aki are doing this; ancient beings, telepaths, guardians of the balance of the Force, they feel Rey and she feels them. They have come to communicate with her through the Force.

Their message is full of light, calm and wisdom. Rey uses their joint strength to reach out beyond the desert, beyond Pasaana, beyond the system. She opens the bond and pours light into it.

Somewhere there, in a different part of the galaxy, Kylo is paying attention. She can feel him calm down, the pulsing light inside his dark Force signature getting stronger and less erratic. She envelops the tendrils of the Force around him, infusing his darkness with her light. Now they truly need to learn and accept so they can trust each other with their lives. Her hands joined to those of the Aki-Aki, Rey feels like a sphere of light hanging above the desert, and the power that comes from that feeling is serene and hopeful.

When the sun sets, the Aki-Aki depart in silence.

* * *

She doesn’t see Kylo at all for the first two days. She is not idle; besides meditation, she practises combat with a training remote and runs for kilometres in the desert. Running on the sand is not easy, but it’s her specialty. She hasn’t had the opportunity to do it in the past year as none of their bases were on a sandy world.

She continues to live in the shelter, taking advantage of the hospitality of the Aki-Aki and eating the meals provided by them. She doesn’t even venture to town; the solitude and the focus on training are healing and refreshing. Each evening, her hosts come to meditate with her under the setting sun.

The bond opens suddenly at the end of the third afternoon, when she does physical exercises in a shaded spot in the canyon. Kylo appears in front of her and looks to be in the middle of something; he must be planet-side because his hair and cloak are swirling in the wind. It must be a hot place, too, as he appears slightly flustered.

“Are you on a desert world?” Rey inquires, noticing grains of sand on his clothes.

“Yes, boring First Order business. How are you?”

“I’m fine. But I haven’t gone back to Espirion. Can you come get me on Pasaana instead?”

“Ah,” Kylo frowns. “Did your friends take exception to our goodbye embrace and decided to abandon you to your fate?”

“It was my idea to stay here, but yes, well, they didn’t like it very much.”

He looks at her expectantly, so Rey shrugs, feigning indifference.

“They will come round. They just need to see it works and that they can trust you.”

She is determined not to tell him any more for now.

“Are you still sure about this?” Kylo asks levelly.

“Training with you and coming to your ship? I am sure if you are.”

He nods.

“I can come and get you in three days. But,” he looks behind him, “I can’t stay any longer now… if my people see me talking to the air, they will think the Supreme Leader has gone completely mad.”

“How did the rest of your high-command take the results of the negotiation?”

“Surprisingly well. Everyone seems to be relieved the war is over.”

“Over? Did you tell them about Palpatine and the alliance?”

He sighs.

“Not to everyone, no. I’m waiting with this for your arrival.”

“I was supposed to go there for training,” Rey reminds him. “Not for your political communications.”

“You’ll have to help me with that too, Rey. This is a package deal. I’m not asking you to go with me to all my meetings. But showing your face, standing next to me and saying a few words from time to time will be necessary, or people will start getting suspicious.”

She is briefly overcome with panic at the thought of it – she is no politician, and definitely doesn’t feel like sitting in political meetings with the whole of the First Order’s leadership – but it’s difficult to say no when he said yes to training together and when said training will take place on his ship. She was the one to insist on a galactic alliance; in this alliance, she is a weapon, just as much as Kylo and his army, and weapons need to be displayed and brandished.

Rey thinks of Poe’s warning about getting involved in things she might not want to be part of once she finds herself so close to the First Order’s seat of power. She also remembers her own refusal to join Kylo one year ago and asks herself how this is different now.

But she dismisses the thought. In the face of the new threat, there is simply no other way for them to accomplish their task.

* * *

Three days later, as she runs in the dunes in the morning, she hears him through the bond.

_I am coming. Are you ready for me?_

She stops and looks at the sky. She can’t see him yet but she feels he is approaching fast, and that he is alone.

A moment later, a small dot appears on the horizon.

_Let’s play._

_Play what?_

_I want to try something. Chase me._

She ignites her lightsaber, turns around and as he approaches, she breaks into a run.

_You want me to mow you down?_

_I want you to try. It’s training, remember?_

_You will get hurt._

_Take care that _you_ don’t._

He is coming in at a high speed, the engines of his TIE Whisper roaring behind Rey. He is flying very low, so low that he could really mow her down. She runs, wondering if it was a good idea; she has never tried that with a moving object –

_You are crazy! I’m pulling up._

_DON’T!_

She leaps into the air and flips backwards. She manages to land on top of his ship and, for a short moment, while regaining some semblance of balance, just enough to stay in place for a few seconds, even if the wind makes it almost impossible to open her eyes, she has a clear window of opportunity. If she brought her saber down now, she could slash clean into his cockpit or smash one of his wings and crash him.

_Don’t you dare damage my ship! Where did you get the idea of doing something like that anyway?_

_Just admit I have skills that you don’t. _

The balance is impossible to maintain any longer at this speed – even if he is slowing down – so she jumps down onto the sand, tucks her knees and arms to her chest in order to land more softly and rolls on the ground.

She grins as she gets up, and she can feel him grinning too through their bond.

That was quite an exhilarating ride.

His ship makes a U-turn and comes to a halt just a few metres away from her. Rey is waiting, still panting hard. The hatch hisses open and she straightens up, preparing to face Kylo –

– When suddenly her surroundings shift, and she finds herself somewhere else.

* * *

She’s standing on top of something that looks like a wreck of one of the old ships she used to scavenge on Jakku. It’s in the middle of the sea and the structure is partly submerged. A violent storm is ongoing, huge waves rocking the wreck and crashing on top of it. The part Rey is standing on is a long and narrow strip licked by the raging ocean. She’s being sprayed with seawater, and soon she’s completely soaked.

Through the mist, it’s impossible to see clearly. It’s either early evening or it’s the storm that darkens the sky so. Rey’s eyes dart to the direction where Kylo’s Tie Whisper has landed in the desert. Is he here? _Where is here_? What is happening?

It’s the dim red glow she spots first through the mist, which then takes the shape of his lightsaber and Kylo himself emerges, walking towards her. He’s also thoroughly soaked. His face is expressionless, it doesn’t look like he’s going to offer any explanations, and the bond is silent.

Something is wrong.

Rey ignites her own saber, her heart beating fast. A few more strides and he slams his weapon into hers with such force that Rey’s legs buckle.

They clash violently, the sea roaring around them, the wreck swaying under their feet. It takes everything to keep her balance so as not to get swept into the water. Waves crash over them; for half of the time, they swing their lightsabers around wildly because they can’t see anything through the spray. His attacks are fast and strong but she manages to keep him at bay, at least for the first few minutes. Perhaps this violent environment plays against him even more than against her.

_What’s going on, Kylo? Where are we? Why are we doing this?_

He doesn’t reply and his mind is closed off. Is this even him? Or is it some kind of dark illusion again, showing her an opponent looking like Kylo but who in reality is someone else?

Who?

So Rey doesn’t hold back. She attacks as if her life depended on it, because perhaps it does, and it works; soon she makes him back off a metre or two. She’s now further away from the edge of the wreck, less susceptible to fall into the stormy abyss. If she does, she will either drown or get smashed against the side of the structure by the waves. The violence of the water is terrifying; she has never seen such a furious ocean, not even on Ahch-To.

Their blades cross just centimetres from her face and in an effort to push back, she bares her teeth at him. Her arms tremble from the struggle.

_Why are you doing this?!_

_You wanted training_, he responds finally and she can feel a tinge of amusement in the bond. His sense of humour is really very particular.

_So it is you! I started to wonder._

_Watch your footwork! You’re wasting too much energy dancing around me like this._

_But this platform is moving – _

_Use the Force to ground yourself, Rey! You lose your focus and your grip on the Force when you get mad!_

_I’m not mad!_

_Yes, you are. Because you’re losing._

Before she can retort that she’s just gained two metres on him, a surprise strike from below sends her sword arm flying to the side and for a second leaves her wide open to what could probably be his decisive blow.

But he doesn’t follow through with another strike. Instead, he shoves her with the Force and as she counters and staggers, he grabs her by her hair, tied into a single bun at the back of her head. He pulls so hard that Rey screams with pain. This is enough of a distraction for him to strike the saber out of her hand and push her towards the edge of the platform.

He’s behind her, his arm gripping her waist, as she stares down into the water.

_What are you doing?! Let me go!_

_First, you were doing fine until you let me distract you. You get distracted too easily. Second, you fought well when you thought it was a real fight, but the moment I told you it’s training, you let your guard down. It won’t do. You always need to give everything you have because I won’t go easy on you. _

_Ok. I get it._

_Third, expect the unexpected. You didn’t think I’d go for your hair because you focus too much on the lightsaber. Remember how you threw sand in my face on Pasaana, remember how later I got the upper hand when I kicked you in the legs? Use surprise, don’t let me surprise you. You must know this from Jakku! It can’t be the first time you’re fighting a bigger and stronger opponent._

_You’re right. Now let me go. Where are we? What is this place?_

But he doesn’t reply and pushes her even closer to the edge, so that only the heels of her feet are now on the ground, while her toes and the whole front of her body are dangerously suspended above the water, the waves licking up her legs.

_Kylo, no _– _I told you I can’t swim – _

“Just after I fled Luke’s temple and went to Snoke,” Kylo says into her ear, blocking her attempt to shove him away with the Force, “he took me on a trip to the Rarlech system. When we were planet-side, at one point he tossed me off a cliff, suspended me in the air and lectured me on how to confront my fear and harness it to access the dark side. Then he dropped me and left me to save myself with the Force, or I would have crashed on the rocks below.”

Rey closes her eyes, trying to find a fault within his mind, something she can use to break his hold on her. At this point, it won’t do to thrash wildly in his grasp because he might drop her and she will fall to certain death.

“He told me he wouldn’t catch me because if I knew he would, I wouldn’t try hard enough to save myself. When you think we are just training and I won’t really hurt you, you are not trying hard enough. It’s natural. It’s subconscious.”

“So you’re saying Snoke was right,” Rey hisses. “Tossing you off a cliff. He was teaching you a useful lesson.”

“He was right, yes,” Kylo says and suddenly pulls her back from the edge, then lets go of her abruptly. “It did teach me a lesson, and it made me more powerful. But I will never do this to you. There is a limit to our training.”

She calls her saber to her hand but doesn’t ignite it. His weapon points to the ground, as if he had decided not to fight her anymore.

“Why not?” she asks, wiping her wet hair away from her face. “Why wouldn’t you do it, if it can help me grow?”

“Because I am not Snoke. When you struggled against the illusion the holocron triggered, I could have left you to fend for yourself, but I helped you. Deep down, you knew I would, and you counted on it. This held you back. You didn’t use your Force powers as effectively as you could have.”

He is right. The one time she bested him in combat was when she thought she had nothing to lose and fought for her life. Every other time, either she didn’t really want to hurt him, or she didn’t really believe he would hurt her, and she always lost.

“I could tell you that you need to come at me with all you have, strike to kill, but you won’t. And of course I won’t. We can only push each other so far. But that doesn’t mean you can’t push yourself further, Rey.”

She looks him in the eye, then turns slowly towards the wild ocean behind her.

_Confronting fear is the destiny of the Jedi._

Where did this come from? It’s not Kylo’s voice.

Rey looks at the white crests of the waves swelling below her, closes her end of the bond, spreads her arms and jumps.

* * *

The freezing cold of the water and the force of the waves are such a shock to Rey’s system that she almost opens her mouth in a scream. She is being tossed around like a toy, she could hit the side of the wreck and break all her bones any moment. She controls nothing, nothing, the air in her lungs is running out, and the cold numbs both her body and her mind.

It must all be an illusion that Kylo created to teach her. It’s not a real place.

But the dark hole and the cave on Ahch-To were real. There are many real places where she could find herself in such danger. So it won’t do to try to shatter the illusion.

What she needs to do is to use the Force to get out of the sea.

Rey opens her eyes and pushes back at the wild masses of water. She is not a helpless toy. She is not powerless, not even against something so much stronger. She finds the current, imagines it as a thick rope, grabs it and holds onto it firmly, and all of a sudden the waves around her calm down. She is floating in a bubble in the midst of them, undisturbed.

Her heartbeat slows down, her lungs expand. Silence reigns around her, the sound of the angry ocean having subsided. She does what she did in the illusion created by the holocron: she raises her arms, looks towards the surface and pushes upwards. Her face emerges from the water –

Next thing Rey knows, she finds herself on solid ground, inside a large room. Behind her, there’s a big circular viewport with a web-like pattern, its transparisteel surface partly broken. The room is in ruins, outside the ocean is still roaring, and she realizes she is inside the wreck.

Kylo is standing on the opposite side of the room. Rey ignites her lightsaber and he smiles.

“I think we’ve had enough fighting for now,” he says. “You did very well. I didn’t help you.”

“Is this an illusion? Are you doing it?”

“Yes, it’s an illusion and I’m creating it, but a place like this really exists. You’re inside the second Death Star, in Palpatine’s throne room. The wreckage is on Kef Bir, one of Endor’s moons. I chose it because of the ocean. I knew it would be a challenge for you.”

“The ruins of the place where Palpatine was killed by Vader? Could his essence be hidden there?”

“No. I went there with Snoke and we found nothing. It’s just history now. Palpatine’s hiding somewhere else.”

“How do you know how to manipulate visions and create illusions? It’s a really dark side skill, isn’t it?”

Kylo hesitates.

“I don’t think of it this way,” he says finally. “To me, it’s just one skill you can acquire with the Force. There are no good and evil skills. It’s how you use it that matters. And I’m using it to train you.”

“Could you teach me how to do that?”

“I could, but it’s a waste of time. There’s no illusion you could create that would be a serious threat to Palpatine. He is much better at it. You need to put your energy into learning how to overcome or resist the visions he will throw at you.”

“Your training with Snoke seems to have been quite tough,” Rey remarks carefully. “You have never told me about it.”

He shifts weight uneasily before responding.

“I think the worst thing was that I believed it was doing me good,” he answers in the end, his face clouding over. “He treated me like I was nothing, and I thanked him. Every single time.”

“But you trained with Luke before. His methods were surely different?”

“Yes, but his training was also tough, just in another way. He took such great care not to favour me over the other students – because I was his nephew – that he ended up treating me way more severely than the rest of them.”

“I’m sorry, Ben.”

“But,” Kylo resumes, with a visible effort to shake the bad memories off, “in a way, I understand them. This is why this… arrangement between you and I will be complicated. You mean more to me than I did to Snoke, and we also share a personal connection that I had with Luke. It’s difficult to remain objective.”

“Are you saying we should decide whether we want the training or the relationship?”

It is strange to talk in this dispassionate way about their relationship (or their arrangement?), when they crossed blades just a moment ago, and now they’re standing in two different corners of the room, as if it was impossible to have this conversation at close quarters.

“No,” he shakes his head. “Unless this is what you want? I just needed to tell you this.”

“I don’t agree with you,” Rey says. She’s still holding an ignited saber; she decides to extinguish it now. “This personal connection we have, just like the bond, is not a weakness. It makes us stronger together. And this is what matters. We will have to take Palpatine out as a team, just like we did with Snoke.”

He nods.

“That’s true. But you asked me to train you, and now I see the limitations of the training I can offer you, because of the connection between us.”

“I never actually said I wanted you to train me,” Rey points out as she takes a step towards him. “I said I wanted us to _train together_. We need to train in the same way in which we will win this fight – together. We are _supposed _to help each other and rely on each other.”

He looks at her, his damp hair not plastered to his face anymore but curling around it – _she wants to run her hand through his hair, she has missed it_ – and there’s a trace of smile on his lips.

“In this fight, we will have to trust each other with our lives,” Rey continues, walking towards him. He does the same and they meet in the middle of the room. “One of us might need to save the other. We _have to_ save each other, at all costs. This is the most important thing. So this is how we train, too. You are never a real opponent. You are not my enemy. You are my partner.”

This time, it is a real smile. His features light up.

“Although I’m not saying I don’t want you to teach me,” Rey adds. “You’re actually a very good teacher.”

“Yeah?” Kylo asks almost hopefully.

“Yeah.”

There’s a moment of silence, when they look at each other, the waves pounding the walls of their temporary shelter.

They haven’t even kissed since his return. Rey raises her hand to his face and strokes his cheek. The way he leans into her touch immediately, closing his eyes, is almost heart-breaking. She longs to make promises, to tell him the words he needs to hear, to comfort him, to console him, to cherish and protect the fragility he reveals to her bit by bit.

“So, I have a question about this illusion,” Rey murmurs, and he opens his eyes, clearly taken aback. He thought it was an intimate moment, and she starts to ask questions about the training.

“How realistic can you make it? If I kissed you now, for example, would your lips taste of salt? Because we got sprayed with seawater…”

He starts smiling in the middle of her question.

“I don’t know,” he replies, feigning seriousness. “I’d say I’m pretty good at making it realistic. For example, your clothes feel wet to you. So equally, my lips should taste of salt. Why don’t you just check?”

She doesn’t need another encouragement. She puts her arms around his neck, stands on tiptoe and touches her lips to his.

“Ben,” she whispers.

“Rey?”

“Why do I always kiss you first?”

He sighs.

“I’m not good at this. We fight, we talk… and I never know if it’s the right time. I can’t ever tell.”

“Why don’t you ask, then?” Rey murmurs, brushing his lips with the tip of her tongue. They do taste salty, and she licks the salt off them. These are the most kissable lips Rey has ever seen.

“Just for the record, I always want to kiss you,” Kylo says quietly, pulling her to him.

He is trembling, and it might be because he’s shivering with cold, being soaked to the bone, but it might be for other reasons. He deepens the kiss and when she peeks at him, he looks so needy, his hunger so raw, that it crosses her mind they could just get rid of these wet clothes, right here –

But it is, in the end, the wreck of the Death Star and Darth Sidious’ throne room. There are perhaps better places in the galaxy for lovemaking.

“All that I have said about us,” Rey whispers, “how this connection is our strength, how we will prevail together – you know all this, you know it better than me, and yet you make me say it. Why, Kylo?”

“Because it’s not easy for me to believe it,” he replies simply but the rest of it, the words he’s not said and the feelings that go with them, flood her mind through the bond. Unwanted. Unloved. Feared. Monster. You have left me, twice. On Starkiller and on the _Supremacy_.

You’re not the only one here who is afraid of being left, Rey is about to retort, but suddenly she remembers Poe’s instructions and freezes in Kylo’s arms.

We have to save each other at all costs, she has just told him, after she promised the Resistance she would kill him if need be.

She is trying to picture it now. To anticipate the situations in which it might be necessary. Kylo losing his mind, losing himself in darkness, in the lust for unlimited power that Palpatine will tempt him with. Kylo turning on her, because Palpatine succeeds in persuading him that she is his enemy. Kylo attacking her –

Rey goes through all the options and still cannot wrap her head around it. Even in the worst scenario possible, she can’t bring herself to do it. She can’t end him. Not any more, certainly not after their time on Pasaana, though she can’t imagine she would have been able to do it before Pasaana, either. The thought of betraying and killing him, when all along he wanted to protect her and to face Darth Sidious alone, when he feared betrayal so much, is so monstrous that nothing can justify it.

Nothing, not even saving her own life or saving the galaxy. The thought of killing the man who kisses her like every kiss is their first or their last, who makes love to her with such wild abandonment, who heals her pain and lets her heal his, the man in whose eyes she saw something deeper than desire, a connection even more solid than the Force bond –

If it comes to this, Rey would rather die by his hand, and the galaxy will need to find itself another saviour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally supposed to cover much more, but it was getting too long and I decided to cut it in two. Good news: the other part is largely written so you might get it earlier than in one week. The chapter count goes up by one, and it might still rise... And let me just say, from chapter 11 on it will get really, really tough. Are you ready for it?
> 
> And yes, it's Tie Whisper, not Whisperer (thank you dear Wookieepedia). I was also surprised!
> 
> As usual, thank you so very much for your continued appreciation. Let me know how you liked it today, I live for these comments! Ps. If you feel like kicking Poe right now, I understand you.


	10. Chapter 10

During the few hours it takes them to get to the _Finalizer_ via hyperspace, Rey has a chance to admire every little piece of the sleek interior of Kylo’s TIE Whisper. Or rather, she does that in the first fifteen minutes, because later they both nod off, squeezed together in his pilot chair, tired from the fight and the extreme weather. When she wakes up, they’re docking.

Kylo says very little and seems troubled. Rey has no idea why; they left Pasaana, after he ended the illusion, in a good mood. Is he so afraid of how his troops will react to her presence? The latter doesn’t seem to be an issue when, in the hangar bay, Admiral Croos, now the commanding officer of the _Finalizer_, greets them both politely and walks with them to the High-Command’s private wing. He bids them a good afternoon and informs them he’ll be on the bridge if they need him.

“Are you taking me to the interrogation room?” Rey jokes, and Kylo flashes her a guilty look.

“These are your quarters,” he says, stopping abruptly in front of one of the doors. “My apartment is there,” he points to the end of the hall. “I’ll let you settle. If you need anything, just let me know –”

“Is everything ok?” Rey asks. He’s acting really strange, and she feels a tinge of disappointment.

“Yes,” he says, looking away. “I had your rooms furnished, but I didn’t know what you would like… I’m sorry if something is not the way you want –”

Rey laughs.

“You haven’t seen the rooms I had on the Resistance bases. I was lucky if there was any other furniture than the bed, and often there wasn’t even enough space for more than that. On Hoth, I slept for two months on a bunk bed with two other women in the room.”

He smiles but doesn’t say anything.

“What are you going to do now?” Rey asks. She won’t pressurize him to stay but she doesn’t understand this sudden distance.

“Shower and change. I can come to see you when you’re ready,” he replies and starts to walk away.

“How am I even supposed to open the door?” she calls after him, dumbfounded, but he has already disappeared behind the door at the end of the corridor.

* * *

The door panel turns out to work with facial recognition. It is set to recognize her face and it also asks her for a fingerprint. Finally the door hisses open and Rey steps into her new quarters.

There is a spacious living room with bright but not too aggressive lighting. A desk has been placed at the end of the room, against the viewport, and a row of small potted green plants decorates it. On the right-hand side, there is a large light-coloured sofa, and on the opposite wall hangs a big flatscreen, displaying a two-dimensional image of a forest.

The image is alive. The tropical forest is moving, the trees sway in the gentle wind, birds are chirping, and the light changes constantly as clouds pass over the sky. It might even be more than an image for all she knows – it could be a live transmission from cam droids deployed in that place.

Rey knows this world. Judging by the climate and type of vegetation, it bears a striking resemblance to Ajan Kloss, the first base the Resistance hid on after fleeing Crait. It had everything Rey dreamt of when she still lived on Jakku and hoped to see the galaxy one day. It was warm, green, full of life, and safe. It was a fantastic training ground, too. She spent long hours running through that jungle, jumping over ravines, extending her Force awareness to recognize the different forms of life around her.

If Kylo knew about their other bases, he must have known of Ajan Kloss as well. He probably guessed it was her favourite base. It beat Hoth any time, that’s for sure. The Resistance stayed on Ajan Kloss for three months, which was their longest stint in one place during the whole year after Crait. At the beginning, Leia had difficulties convincing them they needed to change bases as a precaution.

Rey touches the plants on the desk, one by one. Green plants were such a rarity on Jakku, she tried to care for them whenever she found one, but they were all seasonal and short-lived. She tries the sofa, which is as comfortable as it looks. There’s a thick carpet on the floor that looks like a good spot for meditation, and there’s even a small kitchen corner.

She opens the conservator. A few canteens of water and two platters of small snacks are arranged on its shelves. On the kitchen counter, there’s another platter with fresh fruit. Rey has never eaten any of it. She takes one small purple berry, turns it in her fingers, then puts it back carefully without tasting.

Past the sofa, another door leads to the bedroom, which, again, is very spacious. The bed is large, with a high headboard. The green bedsheets are made of the most expensive-looking material Rey has ever seen. She would never dare to wear such fabric, not to mention sleep in it. It’s not silk, but it’s thin and soft, and slightly shiny. She smooths the duvet with her hand, not daring to sit down.

Her eyes wander further, towards another door. It must be a refresher. When she opens it, the colours inside are light and sober. Behind a glass separation, there’s the largest shower she’s ever seen. There’s also a bathtub. She knows what it is, she has seen it on holovids, but never in real life. She’s never been in one. A stash of towels of different shades of green and beige has been placed on a chair next to the tub.

She looks at it all from the doorstep but doesn’t enter.

Next to the refresher’s door, back in the bedroom, there’s a wardrobe. It’s almost empty, except for a cream-coloured shawl, folded neatly on a shelf. On an impulse, Rey takes it out and spreads it over her shoulders. It’s not scratchy like the winter clothes she had on Hoth. It feels soft and very warm.

She folds it away, puts it back on the shelf and closes the wardrobe’s door.

She stands in front of the viewport, staring at the dark sky outside. There’s so much more to discover: the lighting system which, judging by the panel, is very sophisticated. The little reading lamp next to the bed. The holopad on the bedside table.

What is she doing here? What is she doing with _him_? It is so easy to point out their similarities: the Force, the loneliness, the fear, the fragility. Two sides of the same coin. It is so easy to forget all that separates them, all the endless differences, of which this beautiful, luxurious apartment is one perfect example.

If only he saw the place she lived in for so many years on Jakku. On their second night of lovemaking on Pasaana, she did tell him a little about Jakku, and he listened and didn’t say much. But what he must have been thinking –

She didn’t even have a real refresher there. She couldn’t wash as often as she wanted, she didn’t have a bed, she didn’t have any fresh food…

It’s all hers now, by his grace, and after the initial shock and mortification, Rey’s innate curiosity and her love of good things take over. She takes her boots off, puts them in the wardrobe, climbs onto the bed and lies down, adjusting the pillow under her head. The mattress feels amazing. Now this is something Rey has truly never experienced. The beds in the Resistance bases were small and hard, and she never minded because she didn’t know any better, having slept all her life in a hammock on Jakku. She didn’t even know a mattress could be like this – soft but not too soft, letting her fall into it but at the same time supporting her body.

She rests on it for a few minutes, enjoying the soft feel of the sheets and the rustle of the fabric when she moves –

– Until she jumps onto her hands and knees, forgetting the need to be careful, and crawls hastily to the other side of the bed, which is against the wall.

She hasn’t looked at that wall before. There are five pictures attached to it, and she knows them by heart.

These are the pictures she found in an old book on the wreck of an imperial star destroyer on Jakku, cut them out and hung them on her walls in the AT-AT. She told Kylo about the green worlds they depicted, the promises and dreams they carried for her. But how can they be here? Was it a standard imperial manual, perhaps a guide of all the known planets – the book was written in a language Rey didn’t understand, so she doesn’t know – which Kylo recognized from her description and found another copy?

Or better, he saw the pictures in her mind through the bond when she told him the story, and had similar ones made?

Rey examines the pictures closely. The left bottom corner of the one with a big waterfall had been damaged when she found the book on Jakku; it was creased and white, as if someone had folded the page.

The one here has the exact same flaw.

She looks at the pictures one by one. They have been fixed onto some kind of silver metal support and covered by a very thin transparisteel layer for protection. But she finds all the characteristic features she knows: the creases, the spots where the colour has changed.

They are not copies. These are her pictures, from her AT-AT on Jakku.

She sits back on her heels.

On that night on Pasaana, when she told him about Jakku, she mentioned the pictures and her little doll, the AT-AT and the sunsets in the desert. She talked about the speeder she built, the holovids she watched on lonely evenings, the skeletons of the imperial star destroyers she scavenged.

She looks again at the bed. A little fragment of fabric is sticking out from under the duvet. She hasn’t noticed it before; actually, she lied down on it. It’s amazing how many things we don’t see when we’re not expecting to see them.

She lifts the edge of the duvet and takes out her little Rebel pilot doll, Captain Raeh, whom she made from scraps of a flight suit she had found in a Republic cargo container on Jakku. It was many years ago and now Captain Raeh isn’t in the best shape anymore, but it looks like great care has been taken recently to clean the little doll without damaging it. Its side, where the stitch came undone from frequent handling, has been carefully sewn back together.

When the bond connected her to Kylo that one time in the last days, he must have been on Jakku. There was sand on his clothes. He made up some excuse about a First Order business, while in reality he was there to visit her home and take her stuff.

It seems logical, it’s the only explanation, yet Rey cannot believe it. She cannot believe that he would do that for her – that anyone would do something like this for her, go to such great lengths to find her old imperial walker on a godforsaken remote planet, probably dig it out of the sand, and pick up her things.

Rey clutches the little doll in her arms.

She closes her eyes and focuses on the thread of their bond, pulsing strongly now that they’re close again.

* * *

The idea seemed great when he listened to her stories of Jakku in the darkness of her room on Pasaana, holding her in his arms. He didn’t say much, mostly because he could hardly restrain his fury when she threw in some details of her hardship there, only as the context, not the main story, and she even joked about them. She still seemed not to realise fully what an incredibly hard and sad life she had led. Unkar Plutt, who was definitely a piece of shit Kylo would gladly slice with his lightsaber, featured in some of her stories, and that gave Kylo the idea.

A few days later he dragged Unkar Plutt, whining and begging for his life, out of his shop in Niima Outpost, and ordered him to take him to the AT-AT where scavenger Rey used to live. On the spot it turned out the sand had covered the entrance and the speeder had disappeared, just like many other things from Rey’s home, as Kylo found out when he finally managed to get inside.

But the pictures and the little doll were still there, apparently not deemed worth stealing by anyone. The pictures were old and not in a good state, but he had them fixed onto metal frames and covered with a protective layer. He had the doll washed and mended, then put it in Rey’s new quarters on the _Finalizer_, feeling rather proud of himself.

It was heart-breaking to see the doll and, behind it, the marks on the wall which Rey had scratched. His first impulse was to take his saber to it, but it was not his to destroy.

When he emerged from the old walker, the bond suddenly flared to life and he had to lie to her. Fortunately, she didn’t inquire what world he was on because he had never lied to Rey and he wasn’t sure he would be able to invent something on the spot.

He went back to Niima Outpost and beat the hell out of Unkar Plutt. He didn’t use the Force nor his lightsaber, only his fists, and gosh it did him good.

Well, he did use the Force eventually.

“You will pay each scavenger fairly,” he said, throwing the sobbing and bloodied Plutt on the ground in front of his shop, while the people around – mainly scavengers – applauded. “You will not let anyone go hungry. You will not exploit any child.”

“I will pay each scavenger fairly. I will not let anyone go hungry. I will not exploit any child.”

So, setting her things up as a surprise in her new room did seem like a great idea then. But just before returning to Pasaana Kylo started having serious doubts. What if she thought it was creepy and intrusive of him to listen to her story, then go and break into her home? What if seeing these things actually caused her pain, even if she talked about them with sentiment? And didn’t he say something to her about letting the past die?

He shouldn’t have gone there. Not without asking. He got really nervous when they arrived at the _Finalizer_ and practically ran away before she entered her apartment, leaving her alone to discover it.

He chose every detail of that apartment from tens of options decorators had presented him with. He wanted to give her something nice. Not that he thought things were so important, but they had to hold some importance for someone who had had so little.

There is a part of her he truly understood only when he saw that shabby old ruin in the desert that she called home.

* * *

He feels her turmoil through the bond and hurries to her quarters, only to find her sitting on the bed in tears, holding the little doll, and he knows he really screwed up.

“You’re upset,” he states, stopping at the threshold of her bedroom. She doesn’t answer, so he walks towards her and sits on the edge of the bed.

“I’m sorry, Rey,” he says slowly. “I wanted this to be a surprise. I should have asked you.”

Rey raises her eyes and frowns. Then she climbs onto his lap and wraps herself around him, burying her face in his neck.

“Nobody has ever done anything so nice for me,” she murmurs, and Kylo feels so relieved he is almost ashamed of himself. “Not in a thousand years would I expect that. You were on Jakku when the bond connected us and I didn’t even realize!”

“Fortunately. I was afraid you were going to.”

“How could I? I’d never expect you to go there for me.”

“Why not? You obviously loved these things. Why would it be so strange that I’d go there to retrieve them for you?”

“Has anyone ever gone to the other end of the galaxy just to do something nice for you?”

Kylo considers for a moment, then smiles.

“Yes,” he says. “Someone literally flew across the galaxy to my evil master’s flagship in a tiny escape pod and risked her life just to save my soul.”

“Really? That person must have liked you a lot.”

“Perhaps she did. But then I disappointed her, and she left.”

“She’s not disappointed anymore.”

She presses her forehead to his and brushes her nose against his cheek.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

“I wanted to take your speeder and computer too. But they must have been stolen…”

“Of course they would be. It’s Jakku.”

She kisses him, again and again. They are little kisses, on his lips, on the corner of his mouth, on his chin. She was equally emotional when she found out about FN’s stormtrooper file, and now, although he can’t give her the same, he has managed to give her something that has brought this kind of emotion to her face.

“How do you like the rest?” Kylo changes the subject to hide his own emotion and gestures around the room. “Is everything… suitable?”

She looks at him and laughs wholeheartedly, then, seeing his somewhat bewildered face expression, gets serious again.

“I thought you were joking,” she explains. “I see you aren’t. You’re actually really wondering whether this apartment, where every single object and piece of furniture is worth more portions than I’ve ever seen in my life, on a ship which could feed a bunch of scavengers throughout their lives, is _suitable_. Did you choose all this yourself? The bedsheets, the colours, the plants? The shawl in the wardrobe?”

“You like green,” he explains, touching the bedsheets. “And you like to be warm, hence the shawl…”

“It’s all lovely,” she says.

“So why are you crying?”

“You know why I’m crying, Kylo.”

“It’s just things, Rey,” he mutters, stroking her back. He would be mortified if she didn’t like them, yet he is uncomfortable now that it’s clear she loves them. He just doesn’t know how to do this. Doing things for someone, giving, receiving thanks, caring for each other. It triggers completely new feelings he doesn’t recognize, and it’s troubling. In a good way.

“They are gifts. I’ve never received a gift before. And they’re all carefully chosen, you really thought about it…”

“Why do you think I needed one week?” Kylo asks and she laughs, nuzzling his neck.

On Death Star, she complained she always needed to kiss him first, so now he takes the initiative. He pulls her down onto the bed, releases her hair from the bun and watches it spread in waves around her head on the pillow.

“I’m sorry for pulling your hair earlier,” he murmurs, kissing her neck and down to her collarbone.

“Are we going to fight and then make up like this every day after the training?” Rey asks.

“A few times a day. It will be tough training.”

But as he continues kissing down her body, Rey stops him.

“It’s my turn today. Or rather, it’s your turn.”

* * *

In an instant she flips him over onto his back and pins his arms to the bed.

“I am going to take care of you,” she whispers, and this is all it takes to make him fully hard.

She takes off her top and trousers, she helps him out of his clothes and when they’re just in their underwear, she kisses down his chest, all the way to his hips and stomach. She slides her hand between his legs and cups him, while her mouth comes closer to the waistband of his boxers.

He twitches and bucks into her hand. Rey hums with appreciation as she pulls off his underwear.

“You are so big,” she says with such honest and innocent admiration that Kylo almost laughs. She bends down and licks slowly along his length, on the underside. It feels amazing and it looks lewd. Her somewhat messy hair tickles his thighs, she peers straight into his eyes as she repeats the movement, a very slow lick from the tip to the base. Her lips slide over him, her nose brushes against him, and these light, feather-like sensations feel like electric impulses, while the sight of her open mouth and her tongue on him is just…

He’s never experienced this before. His experiences have been very few, mostly from his teenage years and early twenties in Luke’s temple, the first experiments with girls who were as young and curious as he was. His later lifestyle didn’t favour any kind of intimate relationships, and he didn’t miss it particularly, either. He had different things to think about.

In the last year, though, he did miss it. Perhaps because he had met Rey and allowed himself to fantasise about her, or perhaps simply because his mind and body were finally his own after Snoke’s death. He did miss a woman’s company and intimacy, and he didn’t want to pine after Rey, so at first he thought he could actually find someone else.

That was theory. In practice there wasn’t a single woman he found interesting, although he was now surrounded by First Order women longing for his attention. Also, there was something not entirely healthy and much too public in the idea of making a move on one of his subordinates. And he didn’t even want to hear of any of the candidates offered to him in arranged marriages. At one point, he had to admit to himself that whenever he indulged in solitary pleasures, it was Rey’s face and Rey’s body he imagined.

He also used to imagine the specific act she is performing right now. Of course he did. But he had no idea how good it would feel.

Rey looks into his eyes as his tip disappears in her mouth and she sucks on it lightly. She takes him in deeper, she lowers her eyes and concentrates, then slowly starts moving her mouth up and down his length. The heat of her mouth, the wetness, the suction, her tongue swirling around him, her lips caressing him – he wants to look, he wants to see every moment of this, but it’s too good. He throws his head back, moaning.

“Is it nice?” she murmurs.

“It’s fantastic.”

She is enjoying it too, he can tell; she constantly changes the pace and the technique, she experiments with what feels good to him and to her, one time taking him in as deep as she can, then just sucking his tip and caressing him with her tongue. Exploring. When she’s satisfied, she slowly picks up the pace, her head bobbing up and down in a steady, rather slow rhythm. There is an absolutely delicious sound her lips make, and when she hums with pleasure, he can feel the vibrations.

It’s so good that he can’t help thrusting a little into her mouth. He stops immediately, terrified she would gag, but she flashes him an absolutely wild look.

_Do that again._

_You want me to – _

_Yes, I want you to move. And put your hand in my hair._

He isn’t sure, until he remembers how exciting it was for him when he went down on her and she held him down by his hair. So he slides his hands into her hair and moves his hips a little, in the same rhythm as she does.

She puts one arm under his thigh and curls between his legs, her mouth working on him incessantly. It’s insanely intimate, perhaps even more intimate than the actual penetration, especially when she raises her eyes to him from time to time. It’s not just because he’s on the receiving end; he thought the same when he licked her on their first night. They are both moaning now, Kylo is panting, and she actually gets so good at it that her nose almost touches his belly when she takes him in so deep he can feel her throat constrict around his tip.

_You like that, Rey?_

_I love it._

This one short sentence from her is too much and he knows he won’t last any longer.

_Rey, I need – you need to stop now. Come here._

_Why? I want to continue._

_You won’t like it – _

_I want to do it. _

She grips his hips with her both hands and continues sucking as he tenses up in her mouth, shivering all over his body. He’s mortified because he’s sure she won’t like it, but he can’t _not_ give in to this, he can’t resist, it’s too good. He tightens his fingers in her hair and thrusts into her mouth a bit more as she works her tongue on him –

Kylo groans and shatters, can’t help jerking his hips forward a bit too far but she doesn’t choke, she looks into his eyes as she sucks him off, her cheeks hollowing slightly, through the waves of his pleasure, a pleasure so intense he hasn’t been ready for it and he can’t control his body fully. Her hazel eyes watch him not playfully but not quite seriously either, her tongue swiping over him, and there is this slight tightening of her throat as she – _swallows_.

“Rey,” Kylo croaks.

She slowly releases him and gives him one more lazy lick. She starts crawling up his body, until her face is above his, and she kisses him, open-mouthed.

He can taste himself – he doesn’t know this taste. It’s not like it’s the best taste in the world but it’s incredibly hot when she pushes her tongue into his mouth like this, after what she has just done to him.

“Did you like that?” she murmurs, her hair falling onto his face.

Kylo can’t make a sound.

“Do you know what I want to try next time?” she purrs into his mouth, “I want us to do it together…”

“Do what?” Kylo whispers. He has no voice left but he _needs to know_.

“Take you in my mouth, while you do it to me with your mouth… you understand? How can we do that?”

Kylo closes his eyes. He didn’t think it was possible to get hard again so soon, but he may have been wrong.

“I will show you,” he growls. “But first –”

He pushes her off of him, then rolls her over onto her left side, and clings to her back.

This is also a very intimate position. He can feel every centimetre of her warm skin against his chest and legs. She smells of something he can’t describe, fresh and _good_. He buries his face in her neck and wraps his arms around her. One hand goes to her breast, the other between her legs. She’s still wearing her underwear; he groans impatiently and practically rips it off her before returning his hands to where they were before.

She moans and arches her back, then relaxes and starts to rub her body against his chest. She likes it when he caresses her breasts, she is completely wet and pushes her hips to meet his fingers.

He takes his time. He circles the sensitive spot very lightly, then slides two fingers along her slit, around the entrance. Then he raises himself above her, covers her breast with his mouth and pushes two fingers inside her.

Rey cries out, and it’s a helpless little scream, as if she couldn’t restrain it. As he thrusts his fingers into her, fast and strong, dragging his fingertips every time along this soft spot on the inside he found that makes her buck into his hand, and as he laps at her breast, she moans like a needy, desperate animal, until he stops, pulls her back toward his chest and pushes into her.

It’s not gentle or slow, not even at the beginning. As soon as he is comfortably buried inside her and she wiggles against him to adjust, he starts moving and she moves with him, begging him to go deeper. He slides one arm under her neck, the other under her right arm to hold her in place, and he gives her the deep, hard strokes. He can feel it in the bond: how she craves it, how she wants him to hit deep inside, how she wants this to be really strong and forceful, because she needs to _feel_. She wants to feel him, the rage in his body, his energy, his strength. There’s something very primal in her seeping through the bond, a deep hunger, a craving for bodily affection which she must have acquired in the years of loneliness and deprivation spent in the desert. _More, more, more_, her body and the sounds she makes tell him, and she isn’t holding anything back, not now, not anymore.

If this is darkness, let them both be dark.

He never felt desired like that before. He whispers filth into her ear, things he wouldn’t dream of saying to her in another context, and she moans in response. He pushes his fingers into her mouth and she licks them in an absolutely lewd manner, sending him through the bond the images of how she sucked him a few minutes ago. Kylo puts his other hand between her legs again and rubs her as he continues moving. Rey tenses up, squirming between his hand and his hips.

“Yes,” she breathes and cries out as she starts spasming. Kylo traps her legs between his own and keeps thrusting; it sounds as if they were fighting, and it excites him to dominate her, for once, like this. As she sucks his fingers into her mouth again, he shudders, a well-known tingling spreading across his body. Rey tightens her muscles around him and he pushes once more, buries his face in her hair and comes deep inside her, his heart drumming in his ears.

As they come down from their high together, he pulls the duvet over them because she is shivering against him, though it might not be from the cold. Every muscle in his body relaxes as he lies there quietly, still inside and behind her, her back pressed into his chest. She takes one of his hands wrapped around her, kisses it and slides it under her cheek.

He doesn’t deserve it, but he will take it anyway when it’s so graciously given. He will take every second of it and will remember it forever.

* * *

“What do you like most in me?” Rey asks suddenly some twenty minutes later, after she has turned around in bed to face him, and he runs his fingers along her naked arm. Her face is serious, she is looking at him intently.

“Your hope,” Kylo replies automatically. It’s an easy question, he has known the answer for a very long time. “And your determination. You have no fear. You are fierce.”

She smiles.

“That’s nice,” she says. “I like that. I like the person you are describing.”

“I like her too.”

“But I meant physically. What physical feature do you like best in me?”

“This is also easy. Your smile.”

She smiles exactly the smile he’s talking about, her eyes and her whole face lightening up.

“Ok,” she says. “I can definitely live with that.”

He almost asks her the same question. He has it at the tip of his tongue, but in the end he remains silent. What is there to like in him? Well, she must like something if she’s here in bed with him. But he’s not sure he wants to hear it. Perhaps she will need to think hard before she replies, and then she’s going to talk about the Force and the things they share because of it, and this is not what he would like to hear in reply to a question like that.

“Aren’t you going to ask me the same?” she inquires, looking disappointed.

“You don’t need to tell me these things.”

“But I want to tell you. Don’t you want to hear it?”

“All right then. Tell me.”

She pushes him onto his back, climbs on top of him and props her chin on her hands, folded upon his chest, then looks up into his eyes.

“I’m not a mattress, Rey,” Kylo murmurs, hardly able to refrain from smiling. She’s splayed out above him, her legs entangled with his.

“You should be. I’ve never slept on anything more comfortable.”

There is a deep rumble that starts in his chest, and then he laughs, and Rey smiles.

“Well, there’s your hair and your body, of course,” she resumes. “But most of all, I think, your eyes. The way you look at me. It’s earnest and sorrowful, and… raw. Yeah. I think that’s the best way to describe it.”

Kylo’s silent and she frowns.

“You don’t like what I said?” she asks uncertainly.

“I do. I’m just not used to hearing things like this, Rey. It feels as if you were talking about another person. Not me.”

“Why? You know what you look like. You know it’s true.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t think of myself like this.”

“Like what? You haven’t noticed you have nice hair?”

He smiles at that.

“As for other things than physical,” she resumes, “Your intensity, of course.”

“My intensity?”

“Yes. You do know you are a very intense person, don’t you?”

Kylo considers.

“I suppose so… but is that a good thing?”

“It’s good for me,” Rey says. “I like it, even if sometimes it exasperates me. You are like a storm… and I like to get carried away by it. You make me feel things I’ve never felt before.”

There is silence after these words. She looks uncomfortable, as if she had said too much and now regretted it. She looks away and shifts on top of him.

Kylo puts his hand on her cheek and nudges her to look at him.

“What things, Rey?”

“You know what I mean,” she whispers.

“I know. I feel it too.”

Her eyes dart to him.

“You have said that to me once…”

“I remember. The occasion was less pleasant but I meant the same thing. I always felt it with you.”

She looks at him for a moment, then crawls up to his face and attacks his mouth passionately, and everything starts all over again.

* * *

As they drift off to sleep some hours later, they both wonder – is it possible that something so extraordinary is happening to me, or is it one more illusion, a figment of too eager, too starved imagination? Is it just that I’ve never been touched like this, so tenderly, so attentively? Maybe I’ve been so alone that I imagine love whenever someone eligible pays me a little attention?

This is what Kylo told himself after the throne room disaster one year ago. He counted their conversations and the time they spent talking, and it all amounted to less than an hour. After less than an hour of talking and one touch of hands, she got infatuated with an imaginary version of him, and he offered her the galaxy. In order to be loved by her, he would have to change. As usual. Love was always conditional in his experience, and he never fulfilled the conditions.

Rey also cursed herself after the throne room for having imagined all that, starting with Ben Solo. Perhaps he’d been playing with her, manipulating her all the time, and even his plea for her to join him was merely a trick designed to weaken the Resistance. Perhaps, in reality, he despised her because she was a nobody.

Each of them remembers these thoughts again as they lie in each other’s arms now. For one year they let those ideas poison them, sometimes fully convinced they were true, sometimes less so. They do realise they were projections of their own fears – but these fears are so strong they still can’t get rid of them.

Deep down, Rey feels she really is a nobody who came from nowhere and has no place in this story. If it wasn’t for her apparently innate Force abilities, she would just be another scavenger dying of starvation and hard work in the desert of Jakku. Kylo’s formidable family legacy, on the other hand, has only brought him torment and disappointment, and no matter how hard he tries, his name will never mean as much as that of Darth Vader. He knows he needs to be his own person but he’s still not sure how.

In the end, they always succumb to doubts, then start doubting each other, and the endless litany of torturous questions begins again.

Can I trust him? Can I trust her?

Will he give in to darkness when Palpatine tempts him?

Will she turn away from me the moment I do something she doesn’t like?

Will he make me do things I don’t want to do?

Will she abandon me and run away when things get difficult?

Will he ever believe I could care for him and truly let me in?

Will she ever really accept me and want me as I am?

So even as they cling to each other desperately, as if the other was a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean, even if they want to trust and love more than anything else, they don’t know how, not really, not yet. They have never learnt and neither of them has chosen a person easy to love and trust.

But it’s their third night of lovemaking, and by now, neither can deny how good it feels. Not just the sex, but also everything around it, before and after.

The first time ever Rey didn’t feel cold in the morning was when their connection lasted for the whole night on Pasaana and she woke up in his arms, enveloped by his big frame, his breath on her neck, his chest against her back.

The first time ever Kylo discovered that peace and passion could co-exist – contrary to what the Jedi and the Sith said – was also on Pasaana, after their first lovemaking, when he lay his head on her chest, pressed his lips against her breast, and she hummed contentedly, running her fingers through his hair.

* * *

The next morning, as they sit facing each other on the floor in his enormous training room, with Rey itching to try all of his fancy equipment and Kylo insisting they start the day with meditation, she decides to break the silence and the concentration, and tells him about the vision of herself with the red saberstaff.

Kylo doesn’t comment and displays no surprise. She didn’t expect that; she would have told him earlier if she knew he would be so distinctly unimpressed.

“Perhaps you’re happy to hear it?” Rey provokes. “After all, you always wanted me to turn.”

“I didn’t. And even when I said I did, I didn’t really believe you would.”

“So it’s not important, then?”

“Everything is important,” Kylo says, inclining his head slightly. When he is sitting in this position, motionless, graceful and calm, dispensing words of wisdom, he looks very much like a Jedi master, Rey thinks. He would probably hate to hear that.

“But it can mean anything,” he adds. “It might never happen, or it might happen just for a moment. It might not be caused by Palpatine at all. It might be your own darkness that will out. Or it might just be a visual representation of your fears about yourself.”

“You think I’m afraid of my darkness?”

“You are. Everyone is. Fear of darkness and refusal to accept it as part of us is the greatest weakness of the Jedi. It was the case for Luke. Best to get rid of that fear. After all, a fear of darkness is still fear, and fear leads to darkness, in the end.”

“So it’s a vicious circle.”

“It can be. But you don’t need to stay in it. There, the Jedi were wrong. One can use darkness to achieve their goals and then come back from it. It’s not a damnation sentence, Rey. And there’s nothing wrong in reaching for the Force through darkness.”

“That’s just something a dark sider would say if he wanted me to turn,” Rey remarks but he just shrugs.

“No. To turn you, I’d try to tempt you with the power that darkness offers.”

She recalls how, when they battled it out on the Death Star, he said no skill was bad as such, it’s how you used the skills that mattered. Maybe it’s similar with the way you access the Force? Maybe darkness and light do not need to carry those moral judgments with them, and the only thing that counts is how you use the Force once you have reached for it?

It’s a dangerous thought to have, and it’s a dangerous conversation. If her friends heard it, they’d consider it as a proof that Kylo was trying to corrupt her. However, she feels there’s something intrinsically true in what he’s saying, something Rey has believed in for a long time herself.

“In fact,” Kylo speaks again, “you are more likely to succumb completely to darkness if you’re afraid of it, because you’ll never learn to control it, you will always try to push it away and bury it deep. Then you’ll be defenceless against it. You will give in to it on an impulse, and it will swallow you.”

He is talking about Luke and the night Luke attacked him in his sleep. She can tell by his absent look and tightly pressed lips.

“Are you saying I should practise using the dark side before I face Palpatine?”

“Yes. He will try to provoke you, to trigger feelings that lead to the dark side: anger, hatred, pain, fear. If you are not used to it, if you let him and these feelings overwhelm you, you might lose yourself. Instead, you can learn to control them and use them for your benefit.”

“You told me on the Death Star that I was getting distracted when I got mad…”

“Precisely. You lose concentration when you are under the influence of negative emotions. It doesn’t have to be like that. You can harness them, use them to gain more focus. You need this to fight an opponent who will try to destabilize you emotionally.”

“Why are you so sure this is what he’ll try to do?”

“Because this is what the Sith and their likes do,” Kylo mutters. “Deception, manipulation, destabilization. This is what Snoke excelled at. Palpatine will find a way to get to you. Don’t think you can resist it. You can’t. You just can’t suppress emotions all the time, it’s a Jedi fallacy. But you can stay concentrated on your purpose even when you’re high-strung. And when we fight as a team, you will need the focus to communicate with me.”

It makes sense. It sounds terrifying but it makes sense. One year ago, she would have dismissed it as a trap set by Kylo Ren to drag her to his side. Now, she doesn’t believe anymore he consciously wants to trick or manipulate her; but he has an obvious bias, or simply a certain perspective, that she has been told over and over again to distrust and to reject.

She was told so by Luke, who has given her no more than a few lessons, who is now dead and when he was still alive, he made some pretty bad choices. She was also told so by her friends, who mean well but know nothing about the Force. And by a pile of old Jedi books.

While here, she’s sitting in front of a man who is her equal in the Force, who knows her, and who makes her feel she’s cared for. She spent the whole night nestled against his warm chest. One day in the course of the trials ahead he might succumb to darkness, even become the enemy again, but this day is not today. Today, he is telling her what he truly thinks is best for her. The temptation to accept his truth as her own is enormous.

Rey knows she needs to tread carefully. Not to lose her own perspective and not to lose herself when, night after night, she will lie in his embrace, dreamy from lovemaking with him. She needs to keep listening to her own instinct. Because trusting that someone wants the best for you is not the same as believing that person is right.

Especially when said person thinks it’s possible to control darkness, but then gets so dark at times that his eyes turn yellow.

Rey has no idea who and what is right. She is also not sure she will know that when the time comes. She is not even sure what that time will be – but once it is upon her, she will have to make some kind of choice, she is sure of it, and by then she will need to make up her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A rather less angsty and more fluffy chapter than my average - but next time, the war will be upon us, with all its sadness and darkness, so this here is the last breathing moment our couple is getting... for quite some time.
> 
> As usual, I treasure every piece of feedback and am so very grateful to see that so many people are reading and liking this story. Thank you very much. May the Force be with you.


	11. Chapter 11

Kylo’s training is killing her.

Well, not literally. But it’s tough. Kylo’s idea of a warm-up activity is to shoot a blaster at her – set to stun, if he’s in a good mood – to teach her to stop the bolts in mid-air with the Force. To Rey’s horror, Saar-Yen-Dii often takes part in it, and he shoots at her too. At least for her, he always sets the blaster to stun.

Controlling objects, lifting and manipulating them, even with high precision, is not a problem to Rey. She has trained herself in that during her time with the Resistance. But plasma is a different matter. So it takes quite a few burns and bacta patches before she can stop the bolts tolerably well. Kylo excels at it. He makes them both, Rey and Saar-Yen-Dii, fire at him repeatedly and he freezes all the shots in mid-air effortlessly.

Even at very close quarters.

They practise combat, the two of them, the three of them. He and Saar-Yen-Dii gang up on Rey, then Rey and the girl attack him. It’s extremely useful to train with several opponents. Saar-Yen-Dii is becoming more and more of a younger sister to Rey, and much as Rey enjoys spending time with her, she thinks the girl should not be here, on the _Finalizer_, training with them as if she was also going to war.

“There are more kids like Saar-Yen-Dii in the galaxy,” Rey says to Kylo one day as the two of them are resting after the morning’s training. “We could find them and make sure they learn to control and use their powers.”

“I don’t have great experience with Jedi academies, Rey.”

“It wouldn’t be a Jedi academy,” Rey insists. It’s one of her little fantasies, the thing she thought about often in the year after Crait. “Just a place where Force sensitive people could meet and learn together. They wouldn’t have to live there and be cut off from their families. And they could study both the Light and the Dark side. Just like you have taught Saar-Yen-Dii.”

“You think it’s a good idea?” he asks, looking genuinely pleased. “It is unorthodox, I know. But it didn’t seem right to teach her just the Dark side, and obviously I didn’t want to teach just the Light.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” Rey says. Despite her doubts about darkness and about Kylo’s attitude to it, she truly means it. In a future Force school that they could set up together after the war, the way in which the Jedi perceived and taught the Force needs to be redefined, to do away with the strict distinction between the Light and the Darkness, to learn elements of both, and to get rid of some of the antiquated rules.

Such as the rule of non-attachment.

Another important part of their training is learning how to fight together, like they did in Snoke’s throne room. Kylo has a range of training remotes and battle droids, so they can stage real battles. It must cost a lot in equipment, Rey thinks as she slashes the droids with her saber, but it’s exhilarating.

Kylo introduces additional difficulties. He blindfolds her and himself when they face each other, so that they need to feel with the Force rather than see where the other would strike. Then, he blindfolds them when they fight together against the droids. They are not allowed to speak, they can only use the bond. He makes Rey fight with one arm tied behind her back, or with her ears covered so she can’t hear any sounds, to get her attuned to the Force so well she will trust it more than she trusts her senses. The Force becomes another sense, the most powerful of all.

Rey is learning to stay more focused amidst the mess and distractions of a battle. As a result, the two of them quickly become much more evenly matched in combat. She manages to get the upper hand sometimes, as she uses her advantages – the speed and the lightness – to the best of her capacity, against his superior strength.

There is also meditation, exploring the boundaries of the bond, and studying holocrons. Kylo gives her unlimited access to his vast library of artefacts, and she opens all the holocrons, the Jedi and the Sith ones. She learns greedily, although some things give her nightmares. Essence transfer. Dark transfer. Illusions and ancient Sith rituals. But she keeps studying. She reads a lot, especially books about the history of the Force. Thanks to translation droids, she manages to decipher the rest of the Jedi books she stole from Luke.

Apart from the training, there is war preparation and politics. Sitting in First Order meetings, contrary to all expectation, turns out to be the easiest part. Rey is rather afraid of the first meeting with all the First Order high command but everybody appears to have been well briefed on who she is, and nobody seems to have a problem with her presence.

Kylo reveals the Palpatine issue and the upcoming war, while his troops haven’t even had the time yet to celebrate the end of the war with the Resistance. But the First Order is a military organization; the news is absorbed in a sober manner and people may look somewhat shocked but there are no cries of horror and no protests. They must have suspected something – after all, three of their star destroyers left two months ago for the Unknown Regions, never to come back, and there has been no contact with them.

They are very positive about the peace with the Resistance, which is a nice surprise. Many First Order commanders, Rey discovers, are genuinely concerned about the image of the organisation they serve. This image has suddenly and magically improved with the ceasefire agreement. The First Order is allying with the good guys.

They are excited about the new alliance. For them it means building a bigger army, of a galactic scale, in which the First Order would be playing a central role. If there’s a war, and if there’s an alliance, it stands to reason that no other organization can lead the galactic effort.

And also, some of those high-ranking officers might not have totally clean hands after the war with the Republic. They’re eager to have the past written off and to start anew. Rey is slightly bothered by that – until she remembers Kylo is one of them.

But whatever about the First Order was not clean in the past, she finds no trace of it now. Apart from military meetings, they also have briefings related to the governance of the worlds that are in the First Order’s sphere of influence. This is where reports from governors are discussed, ideas for development are presented, and funds are allocated. She doesn’t expect Kylo to invite her to such meetings, but he does. He visibly wants to show her – and the Resistance – that he has nothing to hide.

In fact, they start discussing governance matters already in that first military meeting, after Kylo breaks the news of Palpatine’s existence to the high command. This is absolutely shocking to Rey; in the Resistance, such news would spark a hot discussion that would last for the whole night, while these reserved and pragmatic people just moved to point 2 on the agenda in an orderly fashion.

For the military part, in any case, it is decided they’ll be going to the Unknown Regions soon, to locate the mysterious base discovered by the Knights and to see what has happened to them and the three capital ships. A part of the fleet will be coming along as they expect to come across Palpatine’s army. The war might begin there.

As for the alliance, the first meeting takes place already two days after Rey’s arrival on the _Finalizer_. It is held in the Coruscant Assembly and attended by political leaders of several Core Worlds. Rey, Kylo, Croos, Daere and a few other high-ranking First Order officers participate via holoconference.

Leia, Poe and Larma D’Acy sit around a big table in a huge and ostentatious-looking meeting room, with marble columns supporting the ceiling and golden decorations. This is in stark contrast to the austere interiors of First Order starships, and Rey prefers the latter. The leaders sitting around the table are all wearing rich and intricate garments that make Rey think of Snoke. Again, First Order uniforms seem more normal. Who would have thought she would feel more at ease in the midst of the First Order than with former New Republic officials! Here, on the _Finalizer_, her simple outfits stand out just because of the light colours; among those rich-looking people there, she would feel like a beggar.

“All smoke and mirrors,” Kylo murmurs next to her and squeezes her hand under the table.

After a short introduction to inform everyone formally what the purpose of the gathering is – to discuss the conditions of the new alliance against Palpatine, and to lay the foundations of the post-war order – Leia gives the floor to Kylo. However, at the last moment she suggests that perhaps the Jedi, who is now the Resistance’s liaison to the First Order – a title that surprises but doesn’t displease Rey – would like to say a few words first.

Kylo looks at her expectantly and she realizes he wants her to help him. She has no idea what to say so she just starts telling these people what she is doing with the First Order.

“I am training with the Supreme Leader,” she blurts out. “We complement and balance each other in the Force, and we hope to use this to our advantage in the war. But we are just two people, and even the First Order’s fleet is not enough against Palpatine. Don’t think he would be content with destroying the two of us and the Order – he will come for you next. The galaxy will know worse terror than that of the Empire or of the First Order under Snoke. This is why I hope you will help us. Like I’m helping Kylo Ren.”

This speech, so simple and unaffected, stating obvious things, _stupid_, really, Rey thinks as she falls silent – it’s really not her thing, politics – makes quite an impression. People shift around the table and actually look moved, or scared, or whatever, but they’re definitely paying attention.

Then Kylo speaks. He’s very matter-of-fact, just like he was during the negotiations with the Resistance: not making much of an effort, not being apologetic, and not trying to please. He’s not here to beg for anything, that much is clear. He tells them he’s willing to work with them for the lasting peace after the war. These people already know the Resistance has entered into an alliance with the First Order, and this is not up for discussion; Leia doesn’t try to justify herself in any way, either. A bigger, worse war is coming, a new villain is out for blood, and I’m joining forces with my son, this is her message.

She mentions that Kylo is her son a lot. Rey wonders why; didn’t Leia say on Pasaana that the blood ties to Kylo Ren take away from her credibility vis-a-vis potential allies? It appears she has decided on a new strategy, treating their relationship as an opportunity rather than a weakness. The First Order is a scary ally, as is Kylo Ren – but here she is reconciling with her _son_, and now that the war between the Resistance and the First Order is over, Kylo, as Leia Organa’s son, is more acceptable as an ally.

So she’s using him, and their relationship, a little. Leia will always be Leia. She loves him but she’s not sentimental. The cause is important, and she will use any strengths she has to convince the people whose support she and Kylo need.

In contrast to the First Order, these former Republic leaders are less interested in the war and more about what happens after it. Once we help you, once we send our ships and people to the war, what’s in it for us, this is the main question around the table.

“If we survive,” Rey says, “and if we win, and these are not small ifs, I’m quite sure we will be able to find a compromise on galactic government.”

Kylo frowns at her slightly but she shrugs. She honestly couldn’t care less. They’re not going to discuss the number of people in the Council again, are they?

As it turns out, they are. They actually want to discuss it very much. And again, a surprise – the idea of a Council instead of a Senate doesn’t cause as big an outrage as Rey would have expected.

_They’re all from the Core. They think – and they’re right – that this is their chance to become even more powerful. They don’t want to listen to what all those remote systems of the Mid and Outer Rim have to say. If there is no full representativity, there is more influence for the Core. After all, where do you think the seat of that Council would be?_

_It could be anywhere. If we win the war, people will follow us – _

_“People” will not follow _me_ anywhere, Rey. I need these assholes if I want to accomplish anything and build something after the war._

_I hate politics._

_I told you._

The meeting ends with declarations that sound close to promises. But there’s no plan of action. Not yet. Or actually, these people’s plan is to wait until they’re hit. They won’t be going with him to the Unknown Regions to look for his lost ships and people. They’ll keep their fleets at the ready and will watch.

_Better than nothing,_ Rey thinks at Kylo, who agrees. He actually prefers them not to interfere in this first phase of preparations to the war.

Just after that meeting, in the evening, when she and Kylo are having dinner in his quarters, her comlink buzzes and Finn’s hologram appears before her.

“Rey!” he shouts excitedly. “Look who is here!”

He is with none other than his sister Jannah, whose picture Rey saw in Finn’s stormtrooper file, the same halo of dark curly hair around her fierce face. This time she is not wearing a First Order uniform but a leather jacket, which gives her very much an air of a Resistance fighter.

“She has been appointed a First Order liaison to the Resistance! She has just arrived – we talked only once and were planning to meet, but we had no idea it would be possible so soon! Rey, did you do this?”

“No,” Rey says and looks at Kylo who is sitting silently opposite her, but there is a trace of a smile on his lips.

“My mother has just announced publicly Rey is a liaison to the First Order, so it’s only fair for me to appoint a similar liaison to your side,” Kylo says, coming to Rey’s side of the table so that they can see him.

“Supreme Leader!” Jannah says, immediately standing to attention. “Apologies for disturbing you, sir!”

“No need to apologise,” Rey says, touching Kylo’s hand under the table affectionately. “I’m so happy to meet you, Jannah. But where’s your uniform?”

“It was part of my orders,” Jannah explains, glancing at Kylo uneasily. “To integrate, I was allowed to wear civilian clothes. But if this is a problem –”

“It’s not a problem, Captain,” Kylo says. “Enjoy your time with the Resistance. I expect regular reports.”

“Of course, sir. I will make weekly reports as instructed.”

For a moment, everyone just gazes at one another, smiling.

“We need to have a conversation,” Finn says, looking at Kylo. “You and I.”

“As long as you let me speak before you shoot,” Kylo replies.

* * *

The political meetings are a legion in the next weeks. Many are held with the former Republic worlds and systems and mediated by Leia, others are with leaders of the First Order-governed worlds. The latter are easier; these people are actually flattered that Kylo is asking them for help.

There is progress, but it’s a slow process, and the strength of the alliance will only be tested when the war is upon them.

But in the meantime, the word spreads across the galaxy. A new war is coming. The Resistance and its allies join forces with the First Order. Mother and son, together. The two strongest Light and Dark Force users, together. People can’t resist a good story. It’s a story of good and evil, and it’s different than the old one they knew, of the Resistance against the First Order. It’s a new story.

And it’s also a new adventure. After Rey and Kylo Ren appear together on the holonet with a short message to the peoples of the galaxy – it was Leia’s idea, of course, strongly supported by the First Order’s high command, and Kylo felt he had no choice – volunteers from every corner of the galaxy start flowing into the First Order ranks. Obscure, remote and underdeveloped systems, which have no fleet and no cash, but want to feel relevant and play their part anyway – and have their place at the table when it comes to deciding on the post-war galactic order – contact Kylo to offer their natural resources. The First Order starts to prepare the war machine. It’s a good time for industry all over the galaxy.

In between the meetings, Kylo talks to Leia a lot in private via holocomm. It can’t be just about the war. They have a lot to say to each other. Rey understands that; there will be time to talk after the war, but some things shouldn’t wait that long.

And it continues like that for two months. Training, learning, political meetings, military meetings, and at the end of the day Kylo and Rey find each other. They settle surprisingly easily into what could almost be called domesticity. They patch each other’s scratches and burns from training. They stretch on the bed and talk about nothing important. They read, comfortably snuggled against each other.

As a partner, Kylo Ren turns out not to be difficult. Perhaps he makes a special effort, but he hasn’t got mad, _really mad_, even once since she arrived. Tired, irritated, grumpy, sometimes, but calm. No yellow eyes. He sleeps well, he eats well, he works well. He seems strong and decisive, with a sense of purpose.

Each night they make love. Lovemaking becomes as natural as all the other activities they perform together. In public, Kylo treats her with all due respect and it is clear they are close partners. Everyone probably suspects there is more, but nobody dares to ask. Nobody seems to mind, either.

Their relationship is very physical. When they’re alone, he reaches for her immediately, he hardly ever lets go of her. They both revel in the wonder of having someone close they can touch all the time.

They don’t quarrel. If Rey were to bet on how often they would argue, she would hope for the best, but she would definitely not bet on “never”. As it is, they talk, get to know each other, learn from each other, get closer, and there’s nothing to quarrel about, really, even if they don’t agree on everything.

Sometimes, he brings her gifts – such as, recently, nice sleeping clothes, made of the same soft fabric as his own, which Rey told him she liked. He asks her what she needs and provides anything she asks for – not that she asks often – but he never insists and it’s never over the top. Showering her with extravagant gifts is simply not what their relationship is about.

Except for food. Rey has eaten some wonderful things on his ship, and she suspects he wouldn’t be eating such a varied, elaborate diet if he was alone. He wants her to try as many new things as possible, and she can’t refuse. She’s making up for years of old rations and lack of nutrients.

She jokes that she’ll put on weight, and he smiles.

In another galaxy, at some other time, she could live with him in a cottage on a green world, have a job, children, a normal life. He would be a slightly quiet, slightly grumpy and irritable guy, but warm and emotional, understanding and gentle.

But the Force, and the war, and darkness, have made him more than that, and Rey likes that too. She knows very well, after a few weeks together, what it is, this feeling she has when she looks at him and touches him. He probably knows too, but neither of them says the word. By unspoken agreement the word is not to be said until it’s safe to say it. Until the war is over and they have both survived it. The stakes are too high. There is too much to lose and losing it might not be bearable once the nature of what they have together is openly acknowledged.

* * *

After two months of intense diplomatic work, the First Order fleet sets off for the Unknown Regions.

It takes them two weeks to get there. It’s uncharted space and hyperlanes do not extend as far as that, so they must travel slowly. Two days prior to arrival at the location where Palpatine’s base is supposed to be – according to the coordinates provided by Kylo’s Knights – they discuss the plan of attack. Rey watches the holographic images the Knights obtained from probe droids deployed in the planet’s atmosphere when they first found the base. The structures on the surface definitely look like a military complex, shockingly advanced for this region of space where there is no inhabited world within thousands of lightyears. The planet itself is dark, frosty and dry. There are also images of buildings that look like ancient sanctuaries – are those Sith temples? Is this where Palpatine’s five secret apprentices were hiding during the Empire time, working on techniques of essence transfer?

There is absolutely no certainty as to whether this is really Palpatine’s base. But what else can it be? There’s no mention of such a base in the Empire’s records, nor in Snoke’s private archives. It might be something that Snoke built himself or one of Hux’s secret projects, as Poe has once suggested.

Whatever it is, it’s literally the only lead they have in their search for Palpatine. There are fifty First Order capital ships coming along with the _Finalizer_, two hundred others available to arrive at a few hours’ notice. Naturally, Poe, Finn, and the rest of the Resistance wanted to come too. That could be the first battle in which they would be on the same side as the First Order. The Resistance’s armed forces, however, are insignificant in comparison to the Order’s might, so Resistance commanders are much more useful flying around, talking to people and solidifying the new alliance.

“What if all one thousand ships of Palpatine’s fleet are on that base?” Rey asks. “What are we going to do then?”

“You can’t hide one thousand capital ships on a planet this size, Rey. Where are they? Underground? Look at the holos. I am guessing it’s a scientific and industrial base, with labs, perhaps producing weapons. Or a clone factory.”

In the end, neither of them is right. When they finally approach the dark, cloudy planet, their fleet of ships fully cloaked and in a battle formation, nothing happens. And even when they are so close they can actually observe the surface with their bare eye, it just seems there is nothing there.

The holos showed clear signs the world was inhabited. Outside military-looking buildings, there was equipment and ships, looking as if they had just been used. There were even lights. Now, all the military structures have disappeared. And there aren’t any traces of a recent destruction.

There is no trace of Kylo’s three star destroyers, either, nor of his Knights who disappeared with them.

“It looks like a trap,” Rey says as they’re watching through the _Finalizer_’s main viewport. The planet is dry – there aren’t any sources of water that would be immediately visible – but the surface is crisscrossed with a network of silver lines, which might be rivers of mercury, says the chief scientist.

The base may have been abandoned, but what happened to all the buildings?

“Could they have been an illusion?” Rey suggests.

“I don’t know. Can you get holos of an illusion?”

“Shall we go to the surface and check?”

Kylo hesitates.

“We must. But what if it’s really a trap, only a different one? What if our ships get attacked while we are planet-side?”

“I’ll stay on the ship,” Rey offers. “And you go there. We will be in touch through the bond, even if something happens to the comms. Like this, they can’t surprise us. There will be one of us in each place, and I can come and join you quickly planet-side if need be.”

They argue about it a little because Kylo doesn’t like the idea of a separation, but in the end it’s the most sensible solution. It feels like wandering around in the fog; they’re blind. There’s no telling what they will find on that world and there’s no telling what will happen up here.

Kylo departs with a fleet of smaller ships, including fighters and bombers, and a few thousand of troopers. Rey watches them all leave through the viewport and once they break atmo, she exchanges a few words with Croos, entreats him to comm her immediately if there is anything bad going on, and walks towards the private wing.

Instead of going to her or Kylo’s quarters, she descends to two levels down. There is an empty corridor here with just one door at the end of it.

She has wanted to check what’s behind it for a while now.

* * *

Finding herself on that level by chance one day, Rey noticed Kylo going out of the only door. She asked him what was there, but he evaded the question. A few days later, she tried the door out of curiosity. Her pass gave her unlimited access everywhere else on the ship, but this time the entry was denied. When she asked Kylo again, he told her it’s his private room for meditation, a place where he likes to be alone.

Which would be fine, except that there was something wrong with that place.

She felt it when she was standing in front of the door for the first time. A strange feeling, as if the air stood still, a deeper silence than anywhere else, a feeling of dreadful anticipation before something bad happens. A dark and menacing disturbance in the Force. And yet, it attracted her. It didn’t speak to her, but she felt _it could_. Afterwards, when she meditated in other rooms on the ship, sometimes she thought she felt a presence – someone, something, watching, listening, waiting for her.

She didn’t offer to stay on the ship as an excuse, but now that she has stayed, it seems like a perfect time to explore this room. Her access is still denied, but she throws the door open with the Force.

The interior is spacious and dazzling white, with aggressive lighting. The room is empty, except for a pedestal in the middle, on which a dark object is mounted. On closer inspection, it turns out to be a black helmet, burnt and ruined.

The room is full of whispers. The door closes behind her and suddenly, Rey feels trapped. She understands now. She guesses what this object is and she gazes at it with horror, realizing that all this time, for years, and for the last two months when she was on his ship, Kylo has been coming here, to this little shrine he has made, to meditate in front of Darth Vader’s mask.

“What are you doing here, Rey?”

Her head darts to the side. The bond has activated and suddenly she’s not in the white room anymore; it’s dark, she’s outside, on stone steps, and Kylo is standing on a landing a few steps below her.

It’s cold and flakes of snow are swirling in the wind. Stone sculptures adorn the stairway and big lights illuminate what must be the ruin of a temple. The place has an ancient air.

“Are you creating an illusion through the bond? What for?” she asks, frowning.

“No,” Kylo says, motionless. He’s wearing his black mask, the one he destroyed, then had it repaired, and now it looks even more unsettling than before, with red cracks all over its surface where the parts have been welded together. His voice sounds different through the vocoder and she can’t see his face. It harks back to their first meeting in the forest on Takodana –

“It’s not an illusion. The bond must have evolved. We can see each other’s surroundings now,” he says.

So this is what it looks like planet-side. But if she can see his surroundings, it means –

“I asked you a question,” Kylo speaks.

Rey looks around again and this time she can see the white room.

“Can you see only my surroundings?” she asks uncertainly. “Or can you see both?”

“Both. What are you doing in that room?”

“Why didn’t you tell me what it was?” Rey goes on the attack.

“You wouldn’t have understood.”

“I thought we didn’t keep secrets from each other.”

“Why did you think that? I am allowed to have private things. I don’t have to tell you everything.”

“You’re right,” Rey says and puts her hand on the hilt of her lightsaber, clipped to her belt. “Not everything. But this, you should have. Something is wrong with this place. It called to me. And I didn’t like the way it did.”

“So leave. Just get out and close the door. Why can’t you just respect my wishes?”

“It’s wrong,” Rey insists. “It shouldn’t be here, on your ship, close to you. It’s not good for you.”

“Are you my master now, to decide what’s good for me and what isn’t?” Kylo raises his voice. His saber was drawn already when the bond connected them, and now Rey ignites hers.

“Are you going to fight me over my grandfather’s relic?” he barks. “Are you out of your mind?”

“You were not honest with me,” Rey says. “All this time, this thing has been here – poisoning you – perhaps giving you nightmares – rendering you mad –”

“Oh, so you find me mad?” he hisses through the vocoder. Rey would really like to see his face but he doesn’t oblige. “So you came to my ship to play the detective, and all this training idea was just a ploy?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Rey shouts. “What do you do when you come here anyway, do you pray to this piece of old garbage? Do you talk to it? Does it talk back?! Are you insane, Kylo?!”

He stands there, silent, clenching his fist, his head hung down.

“I’m going to destroy it,” Rey says and takes a step towards the shrine.

“Don’t you dare!” Kylo shouts.

She swings the lightsaber at him, rather than at the pedestal, and Kylo draws back, surprised. She could easily reach the mask with her weapon and shatter it –

But instead, she lunges at Kylo who responds by raising his saber and adopting a defensive stance.

“You lied to me,” Rey hisses, raining furious blows on him. He parries, but quickly loses ground. The two backgrounds, the white room and the stairs of the ancient temple, flash in front of Rey’s eyes intermittently, but Vader’s mask always remains there. It calls to her again, it mocks her, and she is mad at Kylo for hiding this sick thing, for manipulating her into believing he was changing, while all this time he was coming here to pray to the dark side, telling her lies about how she needed to control and use her negative emotions. He just wanted her to turn. She should have never come to his ship, she should have never trusted him, he is twisted, deeply damaged, he would never be right again, he would never give up his crazy fantasies of becoming another Vader.

She needs to destroy him.

“What are you doing?” Kylo shouts. He doesn’t attack, Rey realizes, only defends himself, and this truly infuriates her.

“Fight me!” she yells. “Fight me, you coward, you liar!”

“The dark side is affecting you,” Kylo hisses, probably trying to distract her, to come close enough to grab her and strike the saber out of her hand. It won’t work. He has done that to her a few times and she won’t let it happen again.

“Leave this room!” he insists, slightly breathless now. “You’re not used to it… you can’t think straight in its presence –”

“Stop patronizing me! Stop implying you’re better at everything!” Rey bellows and deals a crushing blow, so fierce and strong that his knees buckle, and he drops onto the ground, raising his saber above him to defend himself, while she presses down, roaring from effort. She wants to defeat him; she wants to see him crawl in dirt; she wants to kick him in the chest and send him flying onto his back, then stand over him and show him who is better –

The low, buzzing sound which, she realizes suddenly, has been present in the room from the very beginning, is getting stronger. So strong her ears start ringing. She turns her head towards it –

The pedestal has disappeared. There is a black statue in its place, Vader’s silhouette, with the mask on, and it is alive. Rey knows it is because it speaks to her. Its voice fills her head with a deep whisper, crisp and clear.

** _He is holding you back. He is lying to you._ **

** _Destroy him._ **

** _Destroy him._ **

She draws back in order to strike a decisive blow but Kylo takes advantage of the brief moment of respite to jump to his feet.

“You fool,” he hisses. “You know nothing of the dark side. You have no control. You dive into it, you don’t even fight!”

His words make the other voice in her head less prominent, and she’s confused now; what was she going to do? Why did she want to strike him down?

** _Destroy him. _ **

“Ben,” she breathes, and Kylo’s mask darts to her, his saber in an offensive position, ready to fight her again.

_This thing – it makes us fight. _

You_ make us fight! You went there although I told you not to, you attacked me, you have tried to kill me just now!_

“Ben,” she repeats. For some reason, it’s impossible to think clearly.

** _Come to me. It’s time. _ **

“Can you hear it?” she shouts.

“Hear what?”

_Ben, we need to destroy this thing. It’s him. Palpatine is speaking to us through this. A part of him lives in Vader’s mask._

The black statue moves towards them.

They look at each other again, the bond suddenly silent between them –

And as one, they strike.

The statue shatters into a million pieces, as if it was made from very brittle material. The fragments scatter on the floor in a cloud of dust, and both the whisper in Rey’s head and the buzzing sound disappear.

Rey extinguishes her weapon and staggers.

Kylo is still, his masked head inclined, staring at the mess under their feet.

“It was evil,” Rey starts, but he raises his gloved hand.

“You tried to kill me,” he states in a cold, distant voice. “I knew this would happen. I knew you would not have the strength to resist the darkness.”

“Why have you been keeping this thing here? What was that statue?”

“I never saw the statue before. I always only saw my grandfather’s helmet. It spoke to me.”

“Don’t you understand? Part of Palpatine’s essence must have been in it! This object was haunted by him –”

“And yet, the danger to me didn’t come from the helmet, but from you.”

He extinguishes his saber and clips it to his belt.

“There is nothing on this world,” he barks. “No trace of the base. As if it had been razed to the ground. We have nothing. There is an ancient temple but it’s empty. No artefacts. I’m coming back to the ship, and then I want you gone. I don’t need another person who is trying to kill me, not on my ship, not in my bed!”

“Ben,” Rey tries, but he waves his hand and the bond dissolves.

She’s alone in the white room. The strong lights are unbearable. She is terrified. Kylo is right, she did try to kill him. Something, someone, whatever it was, spoke to her and tried to turn her against Kylo.

And she let it.

But not entirely. She did come back. She did realize, at the end, she did tell Kylo they needed to destroy the statue.

_Kylo, I’m sorry, don’t shut me out –_

A wave of his fury slams into her through the bond. There’s a hurt animal at the other end. It knew it should not trust anyone, it was stupid to trust, and now it has learnt its lesson again.

_Kylo, no. I managed to control it. I realised what was going on. _

_Not before you almost struck me down! What are you going to do when we really face Palpatine? How quickly will you turn against me? You’re too weak. You’re no match against the dark side. It was a mistake._

_We should talk about it, we need to discuss what it means, how come he could speak to us through that helmet – _

_I don’t want to talk to you about anything! I don’t want to see you again! You have betrayed me!!!_

Her heart beats so hard it might just jump out of her chest. Will he fight her when he comes back? Will he throw her out of the airlock? Should she hide? No, she won’t hide. Rey leaves the white room and heads for the hangar bay, to wait for his shuttle. He won’t need more than twenty minutes to come back, perhaps less. He’s angry, but she will talk to him. This is still Palpatine’s poison; he is trying to come between her and Kylo. He watches them. He tries to control them.

Suddenly, as she races along the corridor, everything goes red. Agonising pain pierces her skull and she bends in two, screaming.

When she straightens up, still reeling from the shock, the corridor is empty and calm. There’s no sign of an attack. The ship is stable. No alarm has gone off.

And yet, something has happened. Rey has nausea. It feels as if something inside her went dead. It’s not the bond, at least; she can feel Kylo at the other end, frantic, in similar pain.

But it’s not his pain. He hasn’t been attacked, either.

She turns around and runs to the closest viewport. She can see the planet, as dark and lifeless as it was before. There are no ships other than those of the First Order around. No signs of anything out of the ordinary.

The dread in her gut increases.

Her comlink buzzes.

“Rey!” Finn’s broken voice shouts the moment she presses the button, and his hologram appears. Poe and Chewie are with him.

They’re all crying.

Rey can’t breathe.

“Rey, something horrible has just happened!” Finn screams, and cries, and cries some more. He can’t calm down.

She knows it before he says it. It’s a feeling. But it’s also logic. It simply cannot be anything else.

The thing that has gone silent, the Force signature that Rey learnt to recognize – the bright and serene signature, so different from Rey’s own, bright but pulsing with energy; and so different from Kylo’s, which is dark, with the threads of light seeping through the darkness –

That bright and serene signature has disappeared.

“We were approaching Espirion,” Poe starts but he is shaking and sobbing, so that he can hardly speak, “Coming back to the base from a diplomatic mission. We had just come out of hyperspace, we were to make planetfall in twenty minutes –”

“There was a red beam,” Finn interrupts him, while Chewie howls mournfully behind him. “It came from space – from nowhere. It struck Espirion.”

“It was like Starkiller,” Poe adds. “Just one beam, and the whole world exploded –”

“Who was on the base?” Rey asks, although she knows the answer.

“Almost everyone! Jannah, Rose and D’Acy were coming back from another mission, they have already made contact; some other ships and fighters were away, we don’t know exactly how many, we’re trying to get in touch with them now, but – but everyone else –”

“Leia was on the base,” Finn whispers. “And Kaydel. And Snap Wexley. And so many others.”

Rey knew it before he said it and yet she can’t believe it. Surely the light that was Leia’s could not have been snuffed out just like that?

So this is how the war begins. And they didn’t see it coming.

Leia is dead. Kaydel is dead. Snap Wexley is dead.

Leia is dead.

_Ben!_

He knows. He is close. And his Force signature is furious, desperate, roaring with pain.

“This is the end,” Finn says, and his voice is shaking. “We can’t – the Resistance is dead.”

The Resistance is not dead, Rey wants to say, but she’s crying too now, in the _Finalizer_’s empty corridor, because she also feels this is the end of many things. The end of peace – the end of hope – the end of the Light – perhaps the end of whatever she and Kylo had built together.

“Where are you now?” she asks. “Are you safe? What if there are other attacks?”

“We’re hundreds of light years away already,” Poe says. “Where is Ren? We need to talk – we need to do something!”

“He’s coming back onto the ship from Palpatine’s base. It’s empty. We found nothing.”

“Get out of there, Rey,” Finn says. “It might be a trap. Palpatine might be lurking nearby, observing you. There’s no defending yourself from that weapon. You won’t have time to react.”

“I know. I’m just waiting for Kylo to come back.”

Silence falls, each of them deep in their own misery.

“We had a fight,” Rey says slowly. “It was my fault. I found a room he kept Vader’s helmet in, and it turned out Palpatine could influence us through it. It made us fight each other. In the end we destroyed it, but I almost killed Kylo before that. He is coming back now and he’s mad at me.”

“Rey, we could come pick you up,” Finn says slowly, wiping his eyes. “If it’s not a good idea for you to stay there anymore, we could come get you in a few days. Or just take a ship and leave.”

It could be so easy. She could just slip away. Kylo did say he wanted her gone, didn’t he? She’s not sure he meant it, yet she could steal a ship, nobody would dare to stop her, leave and rendezvous with the _Falcon_. She would be with her friends again, cry with them, mourn Leia, console them and get consoled. She would be back in a safe place, a place without passion, a place without fear. Instead of waiting for _him_, for his fury and his suffering – because for him, suffering and fury always go together – to fall upon her as soon as he gets off the shuttle.

She could be gone before his return. She wouldn’t have to face him. Things have changed. She could easily justify it; she needed to be with what’s left of the Resistance now.

Except that, on Pasaana, she promised him there would be no more running away.

“I’m fine, Finn,” Rey says, although, of course, she is very far from fine. They all are. “I’ll wait for him. He has felt Leia’s death, he is in pain. We will get in touch with you as soon as possible. For now, go where it’s safe.”

“Nowhere is safe, Rey,” Poe says. “This is it. The war has begun.”

They cry together for a few more minutes, until she can’t take it any longer. It’s too early, too fresh, to make any concrete plans about what happens next. They say goodbye and she goes to the hangar bay.

She comms the bridge and tells Admiral Croos what happened. They need to hightail it out of here the moment Kylo is back, or that weapon might strike them. Fifty ships of the First Order are gathered in one place, and Palpatine might be watching them. They may have flown into a trap.

So many questions. How could Palpatine communicate with her through that mask? Was it really him? Did he create the illusion of Vader’s statue? How long has Kylo had that mask? Has it been controlling him? Was it responsible for his darkness?

Was Palpatine trying to set them up against each other so as to weaken them?

Where will his superweapon strike next?

If Palpatine is not here, on this base, _where is he_?

Leia is dead. How can it be? How could such an important life have been taken so fast, in such a terrible, irreversible way?

Is it Rey’s fault? Did it happen because she and Kylo destroyed the statue? Or did Palpatine lure them to the Unknown Regions just to be able to sow chaos in the rest of the galaxy while they’re away? It will take them now two weeks to come back to the Core. Was his alleged base here just smoke and mirrors, a distraction to lead them astray?

That base was all they had, and it was nothing. They have no other lead. How can they get the upper hand if the enemy is always one step ahead of them?

It’s just the beginning of the war, yet it feels like the end of everything.

Through the bond, Rey can hear Kylo howl with pain and rage. She straightens up, centers herself, and breathes. She is standing at the entrance to the hangar bay, waiting for him to come back and scream, fight her, hit her, throw her away. She’s steeling herself for the yellow eyes.

Minutes pass, and she waits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry...
> 
> It would be lovely to hear your feedback on this one. As always, thank you so much for reading.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 300 kudos - that’s truly something to celebrate. Thank you all so much, and special thanks for the lovely comments that encourage me every time to try and do my very best. So great to have readers that appreciate the story!
> 
> This chapter is shorter than my average, but it needed to be separate from what will come next. I will publish one or two more chapters before TROS.
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy it, and thanks again.

When the Upsilon-class shuttle docks in the _Finalizer_’s hangar bay and Kylo, still masked, emerges, Rey’s heart is beating so hard that she’s angry at herself. She shouldn’t be so nervous. She’s not afraid. He won’t hurt her. She won’t let him.

She knows she screwed up but so did he. She shouldn’t have gone to that room without telling him – she was unprepared for the darkness she found there, she lost herself in it, and she attacked Kylo, genuinely bent on hurting him. What if Palpatine used the superweapon _because_ the two of them destroyed Vader’s mask? What if Kylo blames her for Leia’s death now?

At the same time, it was wrong of him to keep that thing – Vader’s mask – on his ship and to make a sanctuary for it. Wrong and creepy. That thing was evil. It affected him, perhaps for years. Keeping it secret was dishonest, and of course he knew it. He knew how she would react if he told her about it.

But all this is not important anymore. He screwed up. She screwed up. They will screw up time and time again, because everyone does, this is life, and this is life together. All Rey cares about now, all she can think of, is how to contain his pain and fury. First the black statue, then his mother’s tragic death: even one of those would be too much, but both at the same time…

She fears for his sanity. She fears for the safety of everyone on the ship.

If he still wants her gone, if he insists on her leaving, if he’s violent, she’ll have to go. And then, what will happen to him, to the alliance, to the galaxy?

* * *

Kylo stomps towards her and rips his mask off. His face is red and wet, his eyes swollen, and no, he doesn’t look sane.

“Ben,” Rey says, tears in her eyes at the sight of him. She reaches out and wraps her both hands around his forearms, just to feel him, and to stop him from doing something stupid.

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t resist, just shakes his head as if he tried to shake off the shock. His breathing is uneven, he looks sick, and her heart goes out to him.

“I loved her too, Ben,” Rey murmurs and, slowly, tentatively, pulls him into an embrace.

To her relief, he lets her. But he’s numb; he doesn’t put his arms around her, doesn’t rest his head on her shoulder. Then his whole body starts shaking uncontrollably.

“How?” he croaks. “How did it happen? Did you talk to someone? Is anyone alive?”

So Rey pulls away and tells him what she found out from Finn and Poe, and he listens, balling his hands into fists.

“Why? Why did he do that?!” he screams and punches the durasteel wall with such force Rey winces. He makes a dent in it, and when his fist disconnects, his knuckles are bloodied.

As he is about to hit it again, Rey catches his wrist.

“Don’t do that to yourself, Ben,” she says. “You’ll break your hand.”

He growls like a wild animal, looks at her with wild eyes, but gives up. He moves away and walks past her.

“Where are you going?” she calls after him.

“Training,” he barks. “I’ve commed Croos. Told him to move the fleet. We’re going back to the Core.”

Well. It could have gone worse.

* * *

He doesn’t come to her room later in the evening and when she knocks on his door, there’s no answer. The bond is silent.

The fleet is on the move. It will be two weeks before they reach the Core. Two weeks during which anything can happen, and tens of other worlds can be blown up.

Not that they could stop the superweapon if they were in the Core right now. Not that they could have stopped it if they had been close to Espirion earlier today. They can’t do anything unless they know where the weapon is, which they don’t.

For the whole evening, the First Order’s high command and intelligence departments talk to Poe and Larma D’Acy, who are now the Resistance’s highest-ranking commanders. All the Resistance survivors have taken refuge on Naboo. The First Order is also talking to the other allies and to the leaders of worlds and systems neighbouring Espirion, who witnessed the attack. What was the trajectory of that laser beam? Where did it come from?

Great idea, Rey thinks; in this way they will perhaps manage to narrow down the superweapon’s location to a particular cluster or sector of the galaxy and they can spend the next thousand years or so combing space in the search of it.

But that’s all they have. That’s actually all they don’t even have yet.

She is reading the messages on her datapad, checking if Kylo takes part in the discussion, but he doesn’t.

Perhaps he went to sleep? It’s late already. This is the first time they would be sleeping separately since she arrived on the _Finalizer_, and she misses him. She wants to mourn Leia together with him. It hurts that he shuts her out.

She talks to Poe and Finn again. She talks to Rose, who is fortunately safe, and to a few other people. The Resistance is back to post-Crait numbers. Decimated twice in one year.

This is too much. Rey can hardly breathe, thinking about it. All these people, most of whom she knew personally. All these wasted lives. All the tears that have been cried, and those that still will be. They all knew what they were risking, being part of the Resistance. But it was one thing to die fighting, in a battle, and another to be… annihilated like this. At a few seconds’ notice, like the inhabitants of the Hosnian system.

Like Alderaan, Leia’s home world. Rey stifles a sob when she realizes the cruel irony of it; Leia, who watched her home world explode as Death Star struck it, in the end died in the same way as the people of Alderaan. It’s a terrible fate she couldn’t escape. Did she think about it in the last seconds of her life, before the red beam reached Espirion, as she looked at the sky?

Or did she think of her son?

The holonet is on high alert. The former Republic worlds, for whom the Resistance was the symbol of their fight for freedom, are in uproar. Everybody is mourning Leia Organa tonight.

And then, everybody starts wondering who will be next. Panic spreads like a virus. Will it spur them on to act and join Kylo’s alliance, or the contrary? Can they still build the alliance now that Leia, the main mediator, the main person of trust, the catalyser and the link, is gone?

Was this why Palpatine destroyed her – to destabilize the new galactic alliance? Or was it just to get to Kylo? In any case, the people of Espirion paid a terrible price for the hospitality they offered the Resistance. Espirion’s pale blue sphere marbled with faint pinkish veins – that’s what it looked like when approached from space – is no more. Its city skyline with its gently curved white buildings is gone. How many million people was that?

It would be a good moment for the Supreme Leader of the First Order to issue a public statement. To promise he won’t rest until he gets to the bottom of this. To call on everyone to join the war effort and unite against the common threat. To call upon his allies to deliver on their promises and mobilise their intelligence.

But the Supreme Leader remains silent.

* * *

At two o’clock in the morning, when she lies in her bed, staring at the viewport, so tired from crying that sobbing actually hurts, her eyes so swollen she can hardly keep them open – and yet she can’t sleep – there is a weak knocking, almost a scratch, at her door.

She finds him leaning against the wall outside, looking haggard and exhausted, all sweaty and covered in blood, his clothes dirty and torn.

“Have you been training all this time?”

It’s been hours. He’s been fighting battles with droids for so long?

“I overdid it,” Kylo admits weakly. “I made myself sick. I was sick on the floor of the training room.”

She pulls him inside and drags him into the refresher, helps him undress and runs the hot water in the shower. She brings him a fresh towel and his sleeping pants from under his pillow on her bed.

When he comes to the bedroom, his hair damp from the shower, he gets into the bed and curls on his side, facing away from her. Rey wraps herself around his back. Normally, it’s one of their favourite sleeping positions: especially when he is shirtless like tonight, he likes to feel her at his back, and she likes to kiss a sensitive place between his shoulder blades for goodnight, then to put her arms around him and caress his chest. He purrs when she does that.

So she does it today as well. She snakes her arms around his front and strokes his chest gently. She kisses his back, up to the nape of his neck, then buries her face in it. There it is, the well-known smell of wood and spice.

“It’s my fault,” Kylo says and bursts out crying. Rey has never heard him cry like that yet: a helpless, scared, pitiful cry.

“It’s absolutely not your fault!” she finds his hand under the duvet and twines her fingers with his. “None of it is your fault. And everyone knows it.”

But he cries more and more desperately, as if he could not be persuaded that something so bad could happen without any fault of his. He’s so used to beating himself up that it’s a reflex.

“It’s not your fault, Kylo,” Rey whispers, stroking his arm as he sobs. “Let go. It’s not your fault.”

She has never felt as heartbroken for her own sake as she is for him now.

“Leia was happy about the progress you were making together,” she murmurs into his ear. “She loved you. You had the time to talk. She died being proud of you. Let go.”

“I wanted her to know the galaxy at peace, to be part of the work we’ll be doing after the war, building new things. She deserved to be part of it! Instead, all she knew in the last years of her life was war! And that was because of me.”

“You offered her peace. You became allies. You made it up to her in the end.”

“I can’t even bury her,” he whispers.

“She is one with the Force now. You will find her in the Force.”

“I was afraid you might be gone by the time I came back,” Kylo mutters hesitatingly and shifts so he can lean into her more.

“I’m not. Do you want me gone?”

“No!” he sounds scared.

“It’s ok,” Rey replies, because, really, it doesn’t bloody matter now. “You were upset. You didn’t mean it. I get it.”

“Don’t leave me,” he utters, and his voice breaks again. “I don’t have anyone… I can’t be alone again, it’s unbearable –”

She gives him a nudge so that he turns around to face her.

“I’m not leaving you,” Rey says, putting her hand to his wet cheek. “And you have someone – _you have me_. I know it’s not perfect… I didn’t do well today. I let this thing affect me, and I almost hurt you. For a moment, I really wanted to hurt you. But I came back, and I will do better next time. It’s not perfect, but I am here for you.”

“Why is everything so terrible?” he whispers, burying his head in her chest. “It would almost be better just to stop existing.”

Rey heard things like this on Jakku, from other scavengers, exhausted and sick of their sad, full of hardship, joyless lives. Some of them meant it. Some ended their life. And Kylo already let her understand once, on Pasaana, that he had intended to face down Palpatine and die in the effort. He was giving up on himself then, and he’s doing it again now.

But at the same time, he’s asking her not to leave. So he must have some hope.

“Not everything is terrible,” Rey says. “The last two months with me here haven’t been so terrible, have they? It hurts badly now but things will get better. We will survive this, and we will be happy yet, we will visit green worlds, set up a school, you will chair your galactic Council, and we will try all the foods from the whole galaxy –”

“You will,” Kylo says, his face hidden because his head is still pressed against her chest, and she strokes his hair. “You will do all that. For this to happen, many people will have to die first. This is the price to pay, Rey. The dream of a free and safe galaxy comes true at a high price. My mother has already paid her part, and I am next.”

It sounds so final and ominous Rey must remind herself it’s just his pain speaking. Or is it more than that? Did the Force show him something?

Because if this is the price of a free and safe galaxy, the price of victory and peace, if he needs to die for that –

Then it’s the price she’s not prepared to pay.

“I’m sorry for lashing out at you,” he mutters.

“Well, I’m sorry for trying to kill you.”

“We promised each other there would be no more of that.”

“I know,” Rey says. “But it wasn’t _really_ us. This thing wanted us to fight. And I should have been able to resist it. You must teach me how.”

“Do you think my grandfather ever spoke to me through that mask?”

“Your grandfather died in the Light, Ben. Why would he speak to you as Vader? It makes no sense. If something spoke to you through that thing, it wasn’t your grandfather. How did you get that mask in the first place?”

At that, he pulls away and looks at her, his brow furrowed.

“It was a gift… from Snoke.”

“Some gift!” Rey explodes. “That monster gave you an artefact through which Palpatine could control you! He whispered lies to you for years!”

“It’s not exactly like that… it didn’t tell me anything specific. It was more of a feeling… it reinforced my sense of purpose in the dark side, it helped me reduce my conflict.”

“I bet it did!”

This too, Rey thinks, was smoke and mirrors. Deception is truly the favourite technique of the Sith.

“My family was as good as dead to me when I was with Snoke. It made me feel less lonely to have a connection to my grandfather.”

“Welcome to the club,” Rey says. “The club of people who feel lonely so they like to tell themselves stories about their family, and need a harsh wake-up call to realise they were fantasies. Like the wake-up call you gave me in Snoke’s throne room! Perhaps I just did the same thing for you today. You needed to hear it.”

“I just didn’t need to lose my mother right after I lost my fantasy of a grandfather,” he says, his eyes full of tears again.

At least you had a family, Rey almost says, but stops herself. Instead –

“One can find a new family, you know?”

“Yes. I know you found one with the Resistance.”

No. I found one with you, she thinks but doesn’t say it.

This is a perfect moment to say the words. The magical words that open new possibilities in a relationship. The words that unlock the future. There’s no better moment to speak them, and yet Rey is too afraid.

She wonders if he ever said them to anyone, and if he would say them to her one day.

This bed they’re lying in, her bed: they have made love in it so many times in the past two months. By now, she knows his body so well, she has kissed it all, and he did the same to her. She saw him in the most intimate moments, at his most vulnerable, at his softest, at his least controlled, and he saw her. They have been warm and happy in this bed together, in each other’s arms, revelling in the exquisite sensation of touching each other’s skin, of bestowing and receiving pleasure and affection. And as long as their bodies are warm and full of life, there is hope, Rey thinks.

Even if her heart feels heavier than ever before. Heavier than after Han Solo died, heavier than after Crait, heavier than after Kylo attacked her brutally on Pasaana and she saw his yellow eyes. Tonight, with Leia gone, all the Light seems to be gone from the galaxy. Tonight, things truly seem more hopeless and scarier than on any previous occasion, and yet Rey clings to hope.

She has to. It’s what Rey does. When she asked Kylo what he liked most in her, he said it was her hope. So she will give him that.

She presses her lips to his forehead, closes her eyes, and focuses on the bond between them. She visualises the thread, herself and Kylo on its two ends, then slowly, patiently, weaves golden filaments of Light into it.

She pours the Light into his mind, her mouth never leaving his skin, until she can feel his muscles relax, until he stops shaking and melts into her.

Tomorrow they have to rise early. They have to think what their next step will be. What the next step to win this war should be. But for now –

Rey prays for sleep without nightmares, for him and for herself, a sleep that would be like flying through hyperspace – out of space and out of time, in a safe place where nothing can reach them and disturb their peace.

Not even the agony of millions, the horror the victims must have felt just before impact, the debris of a blown up planet floating in space until the end of time.

“Goodbye, Leia,” Rey whispers into the silence around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodbye, Carrie.


	13. Chapter 13

_ **Two months later** _

“Is this it?” Kylo asks, his eyes – like hers – locked on the panorama stretching out before them as they approach.

Rey glances at him. His jaw is set; there are lines around his mouth that weren’t there two months ago, and dark circles around his eyes. It’s not that he doesn’t sleep; these days, by the time they get into the bed, they’re so exhausted they fall asleep immediately. But there isn’t enough time to sleep.

There’s never enough. Perhaps there never will be. Sometimes the only thing Rey wishes for is to wake up from this nightmare in her AT-AT on Jakku.

But now, finally, they are getting somewhere. Things start to make sense. They are in danger, but at least they have something.

“Yes, this is it,” Rey confirms. “It looks exactly like in my vision.”

Their Upsilon-class shuttle is flying over a dark surface, which reflects so perfectly the iceberg looming on the horizon one can wonder which one is the real thing and which one is the reflection. When they broke atmo and emerged from the clouds, this is what they immediately saw, as if the enormous ice fortress and the dark reflective surface surrounding it filled the whole planet.

The probes they had sent into the atmosphere didn’t detect any movement. If someone is hiding here, they are hiding under the surface or inside the iceberg.

There is no “if”. This time they don’t even need to land to check. As soon as they approached Exegol, they felt the space around crackling with dark energy. It roared with what could only be Palpatine’s Force signature.

He is not hiding. He never has. He wanted to be found, and it took them some time, but now they have found him.

*

During the two weeks between the destruction of Espirion and the _Finalizer_’s return to the Core from the Unknown Regions, two more targets were hit, although not by the superweapon. This time, imperial star destroyers dropped out of hyperspace above Coruscant and Bothawui and struck from orbit, several rounds of bombardment on each world, killing thousands and destroying vast portions of land and infrastructure. They jumped to lightspeed immediately afterwards and disappeared.

If the objective was annihilation, the superweapon could have accomplished it. Why did Palpatine opt for orbital strikes instead?

Perhaps even he doesn’t want to be the king of ashes, suggested Rey at the time, and everyone agreed. It was about intimidation, domination and subjugation, and fear. It was to sow panic, and it did just that. It was to play cat and mouse with Kylo and Rey: find me before I destroy your galaxy.

Two months later, parts of the galaxy are in smoke and ruins. The surprise strikes have continued. Around thirty worlds are affected, which is one strike every two days on average. Hyperspace tracking technology exists but Palpatine’s ships must be equipped with some tech that disables hyperspace field generators, because the tracking proves unsuccessful. So, after an attack, enemy ships cannot be followed back to their base, wherever that is. Planetary shields are available too; they wouldn’t resist a superweapon such as Death Star, but they suffice to deflect an orbital strike. However, it is energy-greedy and therefore very costly technology. Planets with important military installations have it, as well as those that serve as major commercial hubs, or are rich enough to support such an expensive project – all in all, a small minority of worlds. No amount of credits would be enough to build and maintain the shields on all the worlds in the galaxy, and anyway no corporation could produce and install them fast enough. And obviously, neither the First Order nor anyone else has enough ships to deploy a star destroyer or a fleet of bombers and fighters above every planet, so as to be ready to fire at the enemy that can drop out of hyperspace at any moment of day or night.

The Core Worlds have the funds so those that don’t have planetary shields yet, build them now in a frantic hurry; in the meantime, they send their fleets to orbit. And when one of Palpatine’s star destroyers appears one night above Corellia, Corellian fighters and bombers react in a split second. They engage the target, drop their loads and eliminate the ship’s cannons, damaging and effectively disabling it.

But not before it manages to fire twice at the planet anyway, and then, to everyone’s horror, crashes on its surface, the direct impact and the subsequent shock wave causing much more harm than an orbital bombardment would. The remaining enemy crew evacuate the ship in transports before the crash; they are either taken out by the Corellian fighters or manage to jump to lightspeed, so there’s no one left to interrogate.

It takes the First Order and its allies a month to improve hyperspace tracking so that they can override the enemy’s cloaking tech and engage a pursuit. At the next attack, an alliance ship follows the imperial star destroyer through hyperspace and ends up in an obscure end of the galaxy, with no military base in view. It doesn’t seem to be the final destination; it appears Palpatine’s ship has orders to stay put there in between hyperspace jumps as a safety measure, to make sure it is not followed to the base. First Order fighters and bombers arrive and attack, and an epic battle ensues, with more capital ships, including the _Finalizer_, joining in on both sides. The alliance manages to crash the imperial star destroyer on a nearby world, which fortunately turns out to have a breathable atmosphere, and as this time the enemy crew don’t have the time to escape, for the first time the alliance members engage them in hand-to-hand combat.

Kylo and Rey with thousands of troopers spend hours planet-side, fighting their way through the enemy ranks in a gloomy, misty forest, bathed in reddish light cast by the planet’s dying star. The forest from Kylo’s nightmares. The first man Kylo wrestles to the ground is wearing layers of clothes and a hood; his face, when uncovered, is human. But when the faces of other slain enemy fighters are revealed, they all look the same.

It’s an army of clones.

The battle ends with the alliance’s victory, which however turns out to be meaningless. Kylo and his allies down one enemy capital ship, blow up a few others, kill tens of thousands of troops, but also lose many of their own, not to mention the losses to their own fleet, including damages to the _Finalizer_. They still have no idea where Palpatine’s main base is. Kylo interrogates brutally tens of prisoners, without a result. The clones don’t know the exact coordinates. First Order analysts sift through the wrecked ship’s computers to see where it was heading, but the data has been remotely erased. The next day, there’s a new surprise strike on a small world in the Outer Rim, with a bombardment so fierce it decimates the population.

Nobody speaks about building the new galaxy after the war anymore. Nobody cares about the Senate or the Council. It’s not sure there will be any galaxy left, and it’s even less sure who will be still alive tomorrow.

But the fear unites people, and more members join the alliance every day. Kylo doesn’t even personally negotiate the agreements with new allies anymore. He has no time for it. He has to deal with the war.

In the end, they have one important success. The detailed analysis of the trajectory of the laser beam that struck Espirion renders results, thanks to the data provided by thousands of worlds whose inhabitants registered the appearance of the red line in the sky. One and a half months after the tragedy of Espirion and Leia’s death, the superweapon is finally located. It is a Death Star-type construction in Wild Space close to Rakata Prime.

Following Kylo’s orders, at first highly controversial and hotly disputed by the allies, the weapon is not destroyed, but instead disabled in a heavy bombardment. The First Order takes control of it, killing everyone on the base – clones again. Digging through the electronic systems and the archives of the base, First Order analysts manage to recover some data related to the last time the weapon was used, and notably the heavily encrypted order to fire it. They trace the coordinates from which the order came to an uncharted location in the Unknown Regions.

In a coded message they also find, the planet is referred to as Exegol.

* * *

Even if two months ago they had zero leads, and now they’re actually looking at Palpatine’s base, Rey had more hope then than she does now. There have been too many terrible, senseless attacks, too much grief, too much gore and horror. Two months seem short in a war, but it was a period of unprecedented violence, destruction and death. The morale was probably stronger among the Resistance after Crait than it is now among the members of the galactic alliance, even if they’re making progress.

The randomness of the attacks is the worst. If anyone can die at any moment, everything, even fighting, becomes pointless. Life becomes meaningless. And this is probably Palpatine’s deliberate strategy – to wear them out, to drive them to distraction and despair – unless there’s no method in it whatsoever, unless it’s all madness and a show of power.

Rey is tired. She knows Kylo is too. The strong sense of purpose they had some time ago has now faded. There’s only so much a human mind and body can take. When the time comes, perhaps they won’t be able to fight Palpatine as furiously as they would otherwise. Perhaps he hopes they will give in to whatever he will try to subject them to, just to end the torture.

As she gazes at the ice fortress, Rey knows what they have to do – they came here to do it – but has no idea how it will play out. They might never leave this place alive.

The first plan, of course, was to use the newly acquired superweapon to annihilate Exegol, but the weapon was so heavily damaged in the attack it would need weeks, if not months, to be back to working order. They couldn’t wait until then. Millions might die in the meantime. Also, if they started charging the weapon – which, like Starkiller, could only be powered by absorbing the energy of a star – it would be noticed, Palpatine would realise what they were doing, he would move bases, and they would spend months running after him again. No, they needed to rely on more traditional methods, and there was no time like the present. Two hundred First Order and allied ships – including what was left of the Resistance – surrounded Exegol and started orbital bombardment. It didn’t cause any damage; a strong shield was in place. They tried to break through it with a fleet of fighters; to no avail.

It was only when Rey and Kylo approached in the bat-winged Upsilon-class shuttle that the shield opened just for a little while, to let them in. It closed immediately behind them.

They’re on their own. 

“Supreme Leader,” General Daere’s alarmed voice speaks from Kylo’s comlink, “We keep bombing, but the shield holds firm. We can’t get through. You should come back, sir, if you can. It’s too dangerous to go alone. There may be thousands of troops in there.”

Alone is how this was always supposed to be, Rey thinks.

“Understood, General,” Kylo says. “But we have to continue. Stand by.”

The shuttle with the two of them and a few crew members on board approaches the ice fortress and hovers above the surface. Inside the ice, there seems to be a glass and metal structure with stairs and lifts. Most of the base must be underground. The space under the dark reflective surface surrounding the ice construction is also criss-crossed with lines, which might be rooms and corridors. A probe indicates the substance that the surface is made of is a viscous liquid of non-organic origin. It is not toxic.

“Just like in my vision,” Rey whispers.

The planet has a breathable atmosphere. When the hatch of the shuttle opens and Rey and Kylo descend the ramp, a stairway can be clearly seen under the surface. The moment Rey tentatively touches it with her foot, an opening appears, as if the masses of the dark substance had been sucked to the sides, leaving an empty space in between, where the stairs are.

They look at each other and step onto them.

They walk down the stairs, then continue along darkish corridors, always deeper into the heart of the base. It’s empty. They were ready to fight their way to Palpatine but there’s nobody to fight. They follow his dark Force signature.

“Why didn’t he just contact us to tell us where to find him?” Rey whispers as they advance carefully, their lightsabers drawn. “He obviously wants us here.”

“He did, in a way. You saw this place in the vision the holocron showed you. He’s been playing with us all this time.”

Rey glances at Kylo, who looks sharp but haunted, guided by an invisible obsession. She truly doesn’t know what will happen and how Kylo will react to whatever the Emperor will throw at them. She doesn’t know how to prepare for it. She doesn’t even know what to say to Kylo in what could be their last moments.

It’s been joyless two months since Leia’s death. They trained and worked, dreading every buzz of the comlink, as it usually announced a new strike. Always one step forward, two steps back.

They had no conversations other than about the war anymore. Neither of them has mentioned the future in the last two months. Neither of them has spoken about their feelings for each other. Even their lovemaking has changed, becoming sadder, more desperate, and less frequent. Sometimes they fell asleep the moment their bodies hit the bed. Sometimes they lied there for hours, staring at the ceiling, and neither sleep nor words nor physical tenderness helped.

Sometimes Rey found Kylo staring into space with a blank face, and when she reached out and stroked his arm, he looked at her with an emptiness in his eyes. It was worse than anger. His fire burnt low; sometimes she thought he was just going through the motions.

He was keeping something from her, she was sure of it. Something he had seen in the Force, or maybe in one of his dreams, some of which had already come true: fighting in a forest covered in red haze, a red beam striking a world. Perhaps he saw how it all ended, and he didn’t want to tell her, because it ended badly.

* * *

After crossing a series of corridors and empty rooms, they step into a huge hall, and at the end of it –

“My vision,” Kylo speaks.

A large black throne made of jagged stone, with spikes, looms before them.

The door behind them closes. They don’t even flinch. They look at each other with quiet resignation. It’s all coming true, the dreams, the visions. There is no escaping this. They were meant to be here, and here they are.

“Watch out,” Kylo murmurs as he touches her hand. There is an unexpected warmth and softness in his voice and Rey’s eyes dart to him –

Someone inhales slowly. It’s a deep sound that echoes in the big room. Rey can feel the hair stand on her arms.

“Long have I waited,” a deep voice speaks but nobody comes out to face them. Without as much as looking at each other, Kylo and Rey start walking towards the throne.

The closer they are, the bigger it seems. There is no one here, but there is a presence, exactly as Kylo described it when he told her about the vision he saw when he opened the holocron.

“Show yourself,” Kylo orders, and a black figure steps out of the shadows behind the throne.

“Xeno,” Kylo whispers, looking bewildered.

Rey remembers this man; he was masked when she saw him for the first time, while now his face is uncovered. But she remembers his clothes, black and heavy, a sort of armour, from the vision she saw when Anakin’s saber called to her on Takodana. In that vision, this man was one of the six heavily armed warriors surrounding Kylo.

He is human, a few years older than Kylo, his dark hair wavy, his eyes blue.

“I don’t understand.” Kylo speaks. “Did Palpatine capture you, does he keep you imprisoned here? Where are the other Knights?”

At this, five more figures clad in black, their ragged uniforms looking as if they were pieced together with scraps, emerge from the shadows and spread out on Xeno’s both sides in silence. These five are masked and armed with axes and scythes.

“What happened to you?” Kylo asks Xeno, the tension palpable in his voice.

“Only good things,” Xeno replies, a smile on his face.

“This is not my Knight,” Kylo says to Rey and, without waiting for her answer, strikes. Xeno ignites a red saber of his own – Rey frowns, remembering Kylo told her his Knights didn’t have lightsabers – and parries. As the two of them clash, the other five Knights encircle Rey.

What is going on? Where is Palpatine?

Rey breaks the first Knight’s neck with the Force before he even has a chance to come closer, and he falls down with a thud. She throws the second one against a wall, making sure his head hits it hard enough.

The other three are rather worthy opponents, even if they don’t have lightsabers, but their weapons turn out to be vibroblades. They all attack at the same time, and it’s a very fast fight. Blows are raining down on her; if it were four months ago, Rey would probably be subdued by the three of them rather quickly.

Now, however, after months of training, her control of the Force has improved. Her footwork is impeccable, her movements more economical, so that she doesn’t get tired too soon. She’s so attuned to the Force that she foresees their moves before they make them, and knows where to strike.

It only takes ten minutes or so to end them, and it’s done in complete silence. Rey steps away from the body of her last opponent and glances at Kylo, wondering what takes him so long.

Those she has fought, she doesn’t know what Palpatine did to them. She felt nothing from them, as if the armours and helmets were empty inside, as if they were not sentient. No Force signatures. No emotion. She’s not even sure they were breathing. As if their souls had been sucked out and only the bodies remained.

Kylo’s opponent, however, the only unmasked one among the six Knights, is different. He’s shorter but more massive than Kylo, and he’s surprisingly fast. He’s not just a good fighter; he’s using the Force very skilfully. Rey can feel his Force blasts slamming into Kylo, and it takes all Kylo’s strength to resist. Xeno’s Force signature is very dark, heavy and thick. This is the signature they felt when they broke atmo above Exegol.

This is Palpatine, Rey realizes. He must have taken Kylo’s Knights prisoners and transferred his essence into Xeno’s body, probably because he was the strongest of the Knights, while also draining the other five of the Force.

Kylo’s injured. His shoulder is singed, his tunic and robe slashed open, and there’s an ugly wound visible through the ruined fabric. Rey rushes to his side, her saber ignited.

The man who used to be Xeno stops mid-movement, extends his hand and freezes them both with the Force, then throws Rey against the opposite wall.

“You can’t fight me,” he hisses, “Kneel.”

“I won’t kneel to anyone anymore,” Kylo hisses back as he breaks the Force hold, picks up his lightsaber, clips it to his belt, and reaches out with both hands towards Xeno –

Rey gasps as she scrambles to her feet.

Kylo shoots lightning from his hands, and Xeno meets it with his own lightning. She runs towards them and encounters a blast of Force energy so dark it takes her breath away. It literally sucks the air out of her lungs.

“Run!” Kylo yells at her. He doesn’t glance in her direction, but she’s close enough now to see his face, contorted in a scowl, and his yellow eyes.

For a moment, a split second, Rey’s frozen in place with terror and awe. She watches him, his hair tousled, his eyes wild, the blue energy flowing from his fingers and slowly enveloping his whole body, the effort visible on his face, as the other advances upon him.

She had no idea he could shoot lightning. He’s gone under, he’s deep in the darkness, and yet this is the Kylo she knows. It always has been.

“Your coming together will be your undoing,” Xeno, or Palpatine, utters as he walks slowly, step by step, towards Kylo, who now screams with effort, trying to repel the Force lightning of the other man. Rey swings her saber at Xeno but he turns one hand towards her and meets her blade with his lightning, the force of it throwing her to her knees. In the same instant Kylo reaches him and wraps his both hands, still crackling with electricity, around Xeno’s throat.

Rey kicks the man in the legs and as he staggers, she picks herself up, takes another swing and cuts Xeno in two with her saber. His body falls onto the floor but as it touches the ground, Kylo screams and bends in two, leaning on Rey and shaking all over.

“Ben!” Rey exclaims, propping him up. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

But he’s already straightening up, suddenly silent. He still leans on her and seems bewildered, looking at the scene around them, his Knights’ bodies scattered on the ground.

“Rey,” he croaks.

“It’s ok,” Rey says but stops abruptly when she looks at his shoulder, the one that got hurt in the duel. A moment ago, he had an open wound there, still smoking from the enemy’s lightsaber. Now, as she watches, his skin comes together, all trace of the injury disappearing. He rolls his shoulders slowly, towering above her.

“Kylo?” Rey asks uncertainly.

His eyes aren’t yellow anymore, his hands aren’t shooting lightning. And yet, something is wrong. She can’t feel him. She can feel something else. Someone else –

“No!” Rey screams and grabs his hands. “No! Fight him!”

_Fight. Come back to me. You can throw him out. You are strong enough. Hold on to the bond! Find me through the Force! I’ll help you!_

Kylo groans loudly, throws his head back and lets go of her, his hands clawing at the air.

“You… know… what… to do…” he stutters, as if every word was an effort, as if he was trying to break through something that was engulfing him.

“No, no,” Rey whispers and shakes him violently by the shoulders. She tries to concentrate, to enter his mind through the bond, to help him, but –

_I’m sorry, Rey. _

His eyes roll back in his head and he staggers.

Then he goes still.

When he straightens up again and looks at her with a calm, composed face expression, Rey can clearly feel what has happened. His Force signature, which she knows so well, and which roared in pain a moment ago, is gone.

“I’m here, Rey,” he says and smiles.

“No, you’re not,” Rey whispers. She felt his pain in her own mind, even in her body, the pain so strong that it blinded her for a moment. She looks for him in the Force, but he is gone.

He is gone.

“I can be whatever you want me to be,” the thing with Kylo’s face, voice and body coos. “I waited for this moment for so long.”

He leans down to kiss her. He still smells like Kylo. His lips look just like Kylo’s. It’s the eyes that betray him; hard and cold like the iceberg inside which they are, while Kylo’s eyes and face were so expressive that even when he tried to keep his face blank, his emotions always screamed at Rey.

Not anymore.

The moment his lips touch hers and she flinches as their cold pierces through her, Rey ignites her lightsaber through his chest.

He gasps and pulls away, then looks down at the blade impaling him. He struggles, tries to free himself, then to strike the saber out of her hand – perhaps, Rey thinks, if the blade leaves his body, he’ll able to heal the wound just like he healed the shoulder a moment earlier.

So she resists. She holds her ground. She keeps him skewered on her blade as he writhes around it and screams in rage and pain, until he stops fighting her and his body drops onto the ground, lifeless, with a sickly thud.

Rey extinguishes her weapon and kneels next to him. Now, in death, he’s her Ben again. His eyes are closed, but his face is Ben’s, and the unspeakable horror of what she’s done overwhelms her.

“I love you,” she says and presses her hand to the hole in his chest. It occurs to her only now that she could have said these words a minute ago, when his spirit still lingered inside his body. She could have told him through the bond, too. They spent together four months and she never told him, not once, and now that she has, it’s too late. He can’t hear her anymore.

“I love you,” Rey repeats and squeezes his hand. It’s still warm. She wails loudly, like a madwoman, and the sound bounces back from the walls of the throne room. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. Nothing happened the way it was supposed to.

She has killed him. The one thing she promised herself she wouldn’t do, even if darkness took him: to turn on him and kill him. And now, she has done just that.

Because this was worse than darkness. It wasn’t his own darkness, and he wasn’t himself anymore.

She has killed him. She has killed him.

You know what to do, he said every time they talked about it. They agreed to do this for each other if Palpatine managed to take control of their body. She promised him, but that promise was never supposed to be exacted.

Not because Rey thought Palpatine wouldn’t try. She learnt enough about essence transfer from Sith holocrons in Kylo’s library to know that it was precisely what Palpatine wanted her and Kylo for, especially Kylo, because he was a dark side Force user. Palpatine may have taken Xeno’s body, but all along, he really wanted Kylo because of his power. And when Rey cut Xeno in half, he transferred his essence into Kylo’s body.

Only that Kylo was supposed to resist. They were both supposed to be strong enough to resist. They had been preparing for that, and Kylo’s mind barriers were especially strong. He always turned out to be stronger than she thought. He has just shot Force lightning from his hands!

Perhaps that weakened him and it made it easier for Palpatine to take control?

She has killed him, and he died without knowing she loved him.

There is no blood. Lightsaber wounds cauterize on impact. There’s just a hole in his chest, and his hand is getting cold now.

It still doesn’t register properly with her.

But the rage does. Rage rises within her in a dark wave, her fury and despair like the storm on the Death Star’s wreckage on Kef Bir. The feeling is so powerful it cannot be contained; it’s as if her lungs suddenly expanded, as if her vision got sharper, her whole body becoming stronger and better attuned to the surroundings. She can feel the heartbeats of thousands of people outside this room – she knows they’re coming – she can hear their steps. Let them come, whoever they are. She looks down at her hands and blue electricity dances at the tips of her fingers. Her whole body is burning with it, and she knows what colour her eyes are.

She feels a surge of power she has never experienced before. Power to move planets out of orbit, to blow up star destroyers hanging in space, to turn back time.

** _Unlimited power. _ **

Palpatine, Darth Sidious, took Kylo from her. He took everything she had, and she ended him, it’s finished, but it’s not enough. It’s far from enough. Hate and rage are flowing through her and she has never felt so _alive_ and so strong yet. She will have her revenge, she will slaughter, destroy, wreak havoc, cause pain. A dark thick fog envelops her brain –

** _Are you ready for me now?_ **

What was that?

The invisible doors on both sides of the throne room fly open and hundreds of imperial stormtroopers in red armour flow into the room. Rey growls and jumps to her feet, ready to butcher them –

When suddenly everything explodes white inside her skull and she can hear the Emperor’s cackling in her head.

** _I see I was mistaken in my first choice. How foolish of me. What formidable darkness you are hiding within, young Rey. We will accomplish great things together._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it looks incredibly dire right now, but... trust me, please (or trust the Force), and do not stop reading. It will be worth it. I promise. Remember Leia has died, and this is what the MCD tag was for.
> 
> Everything is bleak in this chapter, not just this end. It's hard to write and to read, but I wanted it, as always, to feel REAL.
> 
> Please share what you think - I really want to know how you like the direction this is taking.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No TROS spoilers - safe to read!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm going to see TROS tomorrow night and want to post this chapter before to make sure there are no spoilers in it (beyond some elements of the trailers that are already known) - unless, of course, I managed to guess something by pure luck! I am staying largely offline now because I'm so afraid to be spoiled myself, I have seen no leaks, so rest assured that this chapter is a safe place.

She’s not in the throne room on Exegol anymore. She’s in the Jakku desert, battered by the scorching heat of the midday sun, a sea of sand stretching out before her.

“Rey!”

She whirls around to face a middle-aged woman wearing old rags. Her hair is untidy, her skin burnt with the sun.

“I am sorry, Rey,” the woman utters, putting her hand on Rey’s arm. “I regretted it every day. Your father made me do it. I came back for you, it took me years, but I did come back in the end. Unkar said you had left. I waited for you in Niima Outpost for months but you never returned –”.

She keeps speaking, and Rey isn’t listening. She scans the woman’s features, looking for any resemblance. There is some. This is what her mother may have looked like. Perhaps her voice was really like that.

“You are an illusion,” Rey says, wrenching her arm out of the woman’s grip and igniting her lightsaber. “All this is an illusion. You are in a pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert and you never came back for me.”

The woman reaches for her again and starts crying, but Rey strikes her down.

Everything disappears.

* * *

When she opens her eyes for the second time, she’s in a living room of a very spacious, luxurious apartment – or rather a modern palace – with a huge bay window, overlooking a busy cityscape. In front of her, in rich, elegant Chancellor robes, stands Palpatine.

“Is this how you see yourself?” Rey asks. “The benevolent Chancellor, the pleasant elderly gentleman? No scars, no trace of Darkness on your face? Do you hope to seduce me more easily in this way, like you did with Anakin Skywalker?”

There is a second – a missed beat – when Palpatine appears a little taken aback, or at least surprised.

He probably didn’t expect her to speak first, recognize his face, or make a reference to Anakin. But Rey spent four months reading books about the history of the Jedi and the galaxy in Kylo’s library. She saw old holos of Palpatine. She knows the story of Darth Vader’s downfall.

She even knows where they are.

“It looks like Coruscant,” she says, glancing outside. “It’s a bit too busy for my taste. I don’t think I will ever be a city person. Is this the apartment you had there?”

“Yes,” Darth Sidious speaks for the first time.

“Very nice,” Rey admits. “But it’s also an illusion. And you know what? Since you have no body of your own anymore, because you have just transferred your essence from Ben to me, this is all happening in my mind. So I will choose the place where we will have this talk.”

As she utters these words, the scenery around them changes. They’re now standing in a rainforest.

“Ajan Kloss,” Palpatine states, looking around. He appears very much out of place here, in his Chancellor garb, among the tropical trees and with birds singing above them. Nevertheless, the gentle smile is still plastered on his lips. “Your favourite place?”

“So far, yes. This and Takodana.”

“You like green places. You could have a house here – on anywhere else – and return to it as often as possible.”

“During the breaks you and I would take from the conquest of the galaxy?”

“The conquest of the galaxy won’t take long, Rey. Now that Kylo Ren is gone and the First Order is without a leader, you and I will naturally take over. Over the past two months everyone has seen a demonstration of my power. Nobody will resist. The galaxy is ours for the taking. As I said, we will accomplish great things together.”

Rey laughs.

“There are holes in your plan,” she remarks casually. “For example, just before you broke into my mind, I saw troopers enter the throne room on Exegol. While you’re having this conversation with me, they’re going to strike me down and we will both die. Unless they have received orders to only restrain me and keep me prisoner?”

Palpatine smiles.

“Time passes differently here, Rey. While we are having this conversation, not a second has passed in my throne room yet. They won’t even reach you before we agree on the details of our cooperation.”

“Ah,” Rey says. “So that explains why Kylo didn’t struggle for long. While I was watching what was happening to him, he and you were having a similar talk in his head, right?”

Palpatine waves his hand dismissingly.

“Kylo Ren was not worth my attention,” he announces. “He didn’t want to negotiate. He was weak.”

“He wasn’t weak,” Rey corrects him. “But out of curiosity, what, or who, did you show him that made him waver? Han Solo? Armitage Hux? Leia Organa? And what happened? He knew they were illusions, but he couldn’t bring himself to strike them down, and thus he failed your test?”

Palpatine laughs, looking delighted. He even claps.

“You are amazing, Rey. So clever. So quick. So direct, too. No, actually it’s you that I showed him.”

“Me?” Rey stutters. “You created an illusion… of me?”

She loses her cool for the first time, and his eyes light up immediately when he notices that. He’s a predator, ready to pounce at the slightest sign of her weakness.

“I did. He knew it was an illusion, yet he couldn’t bring himself to strike you down, as you said. That boy was impossibly sentimental. There was no other choice than to get rid of him, while keeping the body. He and I could never come to an understanding.”

“And yet,” Rey says, squeezing tight the hilt of her lightsaber, clipped to her belt; it grounds her, it helps her center herself, it reminds her what is real and what isn’t. “You had such high hopes for him.”

“Yes. I was every voice he ever heard in his head. But it’s not important anymore.”

It’s not important. He’s telling her he was the one who influenced Kylo throughout his life, whether he spoke to him as Snoke or Vader, or as himself. He says it so casually, as if he was not making a major revelation, as if he was not confessing that he ruined Ben, pushed him into Darkness, led him to where Ben is now, lying on the cold floor of the throne room on Exegol.

For a moment, fury renders her speechless and, as she struggles to contain it, Palpatine watches her, amused.

“And you chose to show me my mother rather than Kylo, because you knew –” Rey prompts coolly.

“Because I already knew you wouldn’t hesitate to strike Kylo down, so there was no point,” Palpatine shrugs, laughing. “You had literally just done that in real life! I must admit it was somewhat unexpected, Rey. I didn’t think you had it in you to kill him.”

“I didn’t think I had it in me, either,” Rey whispers.

“You didn’t hesitate. You didn’t wait a moment too long,” Palpatine praises her, turning around and starting to walk. She follows him and soon they walk side by side in Ajan Kloss’s rainforest. “It was perfect. That weak boy barely managed to kill his father and could never bring himself to end his mother. He couldn’t strike you even though he knew it was just an illusion. You, on the other hand –”

“Right,” Rey says. “We know the rest of this story. No need to elaborate.”

“You’re right,” Palpatine agrees. “I’d rather talk about the conditions of our contract.”

“Contract?”

“Well, a cohabitation, of sorts. You will retain your consciousness. You will be my host. In exchange, you will have access to all my power and knowledge, and you will rule the galaxy with me.”

“That’s all?” Rey asks. “That’s all you’re offering for the chance to live inside my body?”

“Is that not enough? Is all the knowledge of the Force, the skills of the Light and the Dark side combined not enough? What are your terms then? Would you like to know more of your family? Grandparents, other ancestors?”

“I’m not sure I need all the knowledge,” Rey says. “But it would be good to have answers to a few questions. Like, I imagine you survived the fall down the reactor shaft thanks to some help from your five secret apprentices, of whom Leeso Tran was one. I imagine they built a clone factory for you, so that you could use the bodies to transfer your essence into.”

“Ah but this technique has its limitations. Cloned bodies, and even bodies of people who are not Force sensitive, degenerate very quickly after a transition. I haven’t been able to slow that process down sufficiently, and going through constant transitions is rather draining. This is why you need Force users. The more powerful, the better.”

“Right. But what happened to your five apprentices? Was Snoke one of them?”

“He was,” Palpatine confirms. “The others are dead now. I used the bodies of two of them for essence transfer, but they were rather old and weakened by then. The results were not impressive.”

“Was Snoke just your puppet, then? Did you always plan to come back and use Kylo Ren as a substitute vessel?”

“Yes,” he admits again. Either he lies through his teeth, or he has really resolved to be transparent with her, at least at this stage, to overcome her resistance. “Snoke was training him for that.”

“Snoke was grooming Ben to become a body you could use?” Rey growls, horrified. “That’s… sick.”

“On the contrary,” Palpatine protests earnestly. “It’s the greatest honour. I chose him because I thought he was the worthiest. I offered him the same deal I’m offering now to you. But he was unreasonable. Unstable. He raged and fought me when I was in his head, and it was all because of you. While I did find your romantic involvement interesting – the Light and the Dark side of the Force, together, seeking balance, perhaps producing very powerful offspring in the future, I thought – the boy was really missing the main point.”

“What is the main point?”

“The point of all this,” Palpatine replies, patting her on the arm in a friendly way, the way a grandfather would. “Unlimited power. Unlimited knowledge. An unmatched mastery of the Force and a complete control of the galaxy.”

“But I don’t want any of this,” Rey says. She stops and leans against a tree. Her legs are shaking but she can’t let him see that.

He stops as well and turns to her.

“So what do you want, child? Do you want me to bring your parents back from the dead so that you can have an explanation with them? I can do that.”

“No.”

“Well then,” the Emperor smiles as he takes a step towards her. “Would you like _him _back? Do you want Ben Solo alive?”

Her heart beats so hard she can’t reply immediately. She thought there was nothing he could offer that would tempt her. Instead, she cannot calm down after hearing this last, casually presented offer. She thought her righteous rage would roll over him like a storm and sweep him off his feet. Instead, she is falling for his benevolent, courteous tone of voice, and the horror of it all somehow gets blurred.

_Palpatine will find a way to get to you. Don’t think you can resist it. You can’t_, Kylo told her once. He said Palpatine would offer her something she wanted. He would find what it was and would dangle it in front of her.

But it’s just deception, smoke and mirrors. She has learnt that too.

“Let me get it straight,” Rey says, her hand still on the hilt of the saber, “If I refuse your deal, you will destroy me like you destroyed Kylo and his Knight before him. You will possess my body and expel my spirit.”

_We have passed all we know. _

What’s that voice? She heard it once before, when she stood on the edge of the Death Star’s wreckage on Kef Bir and hesitated before jumping into the water.

“I would prefer not to do that,” Darth Sidious smiles and this time he looks vicious and scary. “I’m sure you learnt that part, what with all the reading you’ve done. If a powerful Force user agrees to an essence transfer, the resulting being is stronger than the sum of the two. We will be unstoppable, Rey. Who knows what new skills we can acquire if we combine the Dark and the Light side of the Force! Bending the space-time to our will, perhaps? To bring everyone you ever cared for back to life? And for you to become the most powerful, the most knowledgeable Force user in history, rather than what you are right now: the last Jedi without anyone left to teach you.”

_A thousand generations live in you now – _

Rey’s eyes widen as she hears the voice again. It’s very clear, a man’s voice, and she doesn’t know him.

“So what do you think, Rey?” Palpatine coos. “Enough talking? Shall we leave this place, dismiss my troopers, and bring Ben Solo back?”

_ – But this is your fight._

Two months ago, just before Espirion was blown up, Palpatine brought the vision of Vader upon them. He made Rey and Kylo fight over it. The black statue incited them to kill each other. All this time, Darth Sidious has been waiting for them to turn on each other, so that one would be eliminated. Not just because he wanted the strongest of the two – he must have known they were strong in equal measure. But together, they were a threat to him. He needed to separate them, to destroy one, in order to stand a chance against the other.

“I think,” Rey says slowly, “that if you were really able to bring people back from the dead, you would have brought Padmé back for Darth Vader. And maybe you even knew how to do it, but you didn’t want to because that would have taken Vader’s focus away from you and your mad quest. In the end, Padmé would have managed to turn Vader back to Light. So, if you didn’t do it for him, why would you do it for me? You fear me and Ben Solo together. I’ve had enough of your lies.”

Darth Sidious narrows his eyes at her.

“You are not really in a position to negotiate,” he spits at her. “_You are alone_, and no match for my power. Either you accept my proposal, or I will take your body, go back to your fleet and destroy everyone you care about before they even realize what has happened to you. Is this what you want?”

“I am not alone,” Rey says and takes a step towards him. How long have they been talking? It looks like the forest has become darker. She’s also suddenly aware that she’s wearing different clothes, a dark robe with a hood.

When she looks down at her lightsaber, it also looks different. It has a double hilt, and when she presses the ignition button, a red blade springs to life.

The saber from her dreams.

“A thousand generations live in me now,” Rey repeats what the stranger’s voice has whispered to her, and as she gazes at the red blade in her hands, she can feel a new surge of power, feeding on her hatred and rage. Apparently, those thousand generations are not just generations of the Jedi.

She swings the hilt so that the weapon opens into a saberstaff, the second red blade igniting.

As Palpatine leaps in the air and pivots before landing behind her and striking the first blow, Rey remembers all this is not real. It is taking place in her head. It is a fight for domination over her mind and body. She is not really fighting him with a saberstaff. The saber itself is not real, it is a symbol of her state of mind. Palpatine’s body is not real, either. The surroundings are not real.

The rules of the real world do not apply. This is the first thing you must realize when you’re inside an illusion, Kylo told her. It is a mind game, and you can overcome only by the strength of your mind.

As she whirls around and easily parries the first blow, Rey repeats this to herself. Her movements are faster than usual, she finds her skills improved, and she doesn’t even get breathless. She only watched a few holocrons by Darth Maul, teaching the art of fighting with a saberstaff, and practiced with her own staff a few times, but now she’s completely proficient.

Use your negative emotions to your advantage but control them, don’t let them distract you, Kylo repeated over and over again. So while everything in her screams with rage and despair – _because even if she wins this fight, Ben Solo, Kylo Ren, will still be dead and lost to her_ – she focuses on her purpose.

There are voices around her. Whispers. Some of them friendly, some scary. But all of them are here to help because she has called them. The Jedi, the Sith: Rey is calling upon all the masters, from the Light and the Dark side, whose holocrons and texts she studied in Kylo’s library. She remembers all the advice. She has no fear. Here, in her head, Darth Sidious is _not_ more powerful than she is. He cannot be. She is in control. Whatever tricks he tries – changing his appearance, changing the surroundings to destabilize her – it only works for a moment, then she recovers from her surprise and shatters the illusions one by one. It is _her_ mind, it is _her_ body, and it is _her_ fight.

He should never have taken Ben Solo from her. She wants to shout this to him but it’s not worth it; it will only distract her. Hate and anger are useful only to some extent; at one point, it’s the detachment preached by the Jedi that serves her purpose best.

How to live her life without Ben? She won’t think of it now; she will ask herself this question later, when this is over.

She can see on Darth Sidious’ face that she is slowly getting the upper hand on him. And while she has possibly reached her limit in the Light, there is still some Darkness left in her that she is afraid to access and unleash.

_Don’t be afraid. You can pull back later. This is your ultimate test. _

It’s this voice again, the voice of a stranger that has been leading her, whispering to her at different moments of this fight, giving her advice. She has trusted him, although she still doesn’t know who he is, and now he tells her to use the Darkness.

But Kylo told her that too, and so far it has served her well. So she will trust the voice.

Rey drops the red saberstaff, extends her hands and shoots Darth Sidious with lightning. He responds with his own, but she advances upon him, her whole mind and body concentrated at the tips of her fingers, consumed by power so great it makes her giddy, but she holds her ground.

She wraps her hands around Palpatine’s head and the electricity starts coursing over his body.

Rose told her once that one should fight to save what one loves, and not to destroy what one hates. It’s a nice line, except that Rey has lost what she loved, and hate is the only thing left she can use to destroy her enemy.

“Go to Chaos,” she hisses as her lightning drills into his skull and eyes, and Darth Sidious writhes, screaming and shrivelling up until he is transformed into a disfigured monster before her eyes. Rey doesn’t let go; time and time again, she intones the words of an ancient Sith ritual she learnt from one of the holocrons. It made her sick, she was down with fever for a day, yet she persevered because she knew she would need it one day. It is supposed to expel the invading consciousness from her body and consign Palpatine’s disembodied spirit to Chaos, the Void, where he will stay forever, unable to return.

* * *

When she comes to, she’s lying on the floor, back in Exegol’s throne room, and the red troopers are closing in on her from all sides. Kylo’s body is next to her. She doesn’t look at him; she moves him to the side with the Force so that nobody touches him during the fight, she retrieves her saber – the real one – and is upon them.

* * *

She doesn’t even use Force blasts, with which she could probably kill them all within a few minutes. That’s not enough. It wouldn’t bring her the satisfaction she seeks.

Rey just slaughters.

Severed limbs are flying in the air, agony screams fill the room, as Rey cuts the red troopers down, two, three at a time, relentlessly, tirelessly. Their blasters don’t do her any harm; she freezes the bolts in mid-air and sends them back at the attackers.

This is not enough, either. She wants blood. The lightsaber isn’t good for that and she has no blaster, so she starts to rip their limbs off with the Force. She also Force-chokes them and watches them convulse, tear their helmets off, and gasp for air. They’re all clones. Where is the lab in which they’re produced? It must be at a deeper level of this base. She will have to destroy it, reduce it all to ashes, blow up the entire planet.

There it is, she can feel it now, the Dark side vergence pulsing below the surface, under the ice fortress, deep inside the viscous core of the planet. Its Darkness has crept upon Rey so slowly she didn’t even realize it. In the end, it will engulf her.

At last, there is not a single opponent alive. It’s a sea of red: the armours, the blood, the crimson haze that blurs her vision.

No new enemies come in through the doors on both sides of the throne room, and when Rey extends her Force awareness, she can sense the corridors are also empty. Where did they all go? There can’t have been only those few hundred that she has just butchered. Or has it been a few thousand?

Rey can’t tell anymore.

Suddenly the whole construction shakes violently, and a deep rumble resonates throughout the throne hall, accompanied by a deafening sound of heavy materials breaking apart. It comes from the depths of the structure, or the depths of the planet, because it sounds as if its core had broken in half. Cracks appear on the walls.

Above the sea of corpses, Rey walks back to the place where she left Kylo.

She kneels down by his side. He looks very peaceful now; finally, he is at peace. His whole life, this monster was in his head. At least he is free of him now.

Sounds of explosions reach her, coming from lower levels, each followed by a powerful tremour.

Rey combs Ben’s hair with her fingers. Such lovely hair. His forehead is so cool to the touch now. She misses his warmth, the heat of his body, which she liked to curl against so much.

She misses so many things.

When she was fighting Darth Sidious, when she had to make an effort to control her agitation and rage in order to stay focused, something in her still hoped it was all an illusion within the illusion, multiple layers of it, all woven by Palpatine, and in one of them Ben died by her hand. She hoped that once she killed Palpatine, all the illusions would shatter like Vader’s black statue on the _Finalizer_, and Kylo would stand before her again, unharmed.

If it is an illusion, she can’t manage to break free from it.

Rey takes her time, stroking his face, and bends down to kiss him. She takes his hand and covers the gaping wound in his chest with the hem of his cloak.

She has been pressing her comlink button for some time now but there is no reply. What happened to their shuttle? The clones must have followed a specific protocol set up for the event of Palpatine’s death. They were probably supposed to blow up the base, and this is what they’re doing. Nobody comes to fight her anymore because they’re all evacuating. And they must have destroyed the shuttle which was her only means of escape.

But really, it doesn’t matter that much anymore.

The galaxy is probably safe. Without Darth Sidious, the alliance will eventually triumph over the leftovers of his fleet. The war will end, and they will start rebuilding. She has done her job. She can rest now.

Rey lies down next to Kylo and puts her head on his chest, then curls against him, just like she used to do in their bed on the _Finalizer_, either in his or her quarters. She lifts his arm and tucks it around her. For four months, she hasn’t slept alone, not even for one night. She won’t sleep alone ever again.

She is injured but it’s nothing serious. It hurts – the cuts on her arms and back especially, where some of the red troopers managed to graze her with vibroblades – but it doesn’t matter. This won’t kill her. She wonders what will, and how long she will have to wait. Will the ceiling cave in eventually? Will the walls collapse, and will they both be buried in the rubble, together for ever, in this place, the Light and the Dark side of the Force?

It’s a good story, with a tragic end to it. It’s as good a tomb as any other.

But it’s not fair, Rey thinks as she snuggles in closer to him, trying to retain what’s left of his body heat. It helps maintain the illusion of him still being here with her. They had so little time. So little joy. It’s such a waste.

She sobs violently for a few minutes, then calms down, tightens her embrace and closes her eyes. The aftershock of the last explosion somewhere below has just passed, and for a moment, the room is completely still.

In the silence, she can clearly hear –

Rey’s eyes fly open.

She holds her breath, presses her ear closer to his chest. Is it there? Or is it her own heart, throbbing so hard she can feel it pulsing in her ears?

She inhales and exhales a few times, to calm herself. She closes her eyes and concentrates, then listens again –

It’s a heartbeat. Very faint and slow, barely there. It’s not hers. His heart is still beating under her ear.

Rey sits up and examines his face. She puts her ear to his mouth. It seems to her that she can hear his short, swishing breaths. They’re really so slight it could be a figment of her imagination, an illusion… and she’s had a fair share of those today.

His heart is beating.

How? With a wound like this?

The hole in his chest is below where his heart is. The wound bled very little, being a lightsaber injury. How much time has passed? Seconds only, apparently, when she fought Palpatine in her head, and then perhaps half a standard hour when she indulged in a killing spree.

He is alive.

The building, and perhaps the planet with it, is crumbling down around them. Their shuttle must be gone because nobody responds when Rey comms. There’s no way to get out of here, and their fleet can’t help her with that, being stuck outside the planetary shield.

A minute ago, Rey wanted to die here. She didn’t want to live without him, and she didn’t want to leave him alone.

But now –

She sits back on her heels. He is alive, but only just. He won’t last long with a wound like this, through his whole body, with a second opening at his back.

She remembers one holocron whose gatekeeper told her about dark transfer, a Force power that allowed the user to heal mortal wounds and bring people back from the brink of death. It could be accessed by calling upon the dark side at a time of intense emotional distress. The effect was supposed to be similar to that of a Force lightning coursing over the bodies of both parties, the healer and the healed.

Only very powerful Force users could attempt it and succeed, and, allegedly, the price for using it was very high. To tap into rage and fear within oneself in such a powerful way, one had to descend so deep into Darkness they could never make a full return.

Rey has already immersed herself in the Dark side today. Several times. Her soul is likely lost by now, and so be it. No loss could be greater than the loss of him. In the end, Ben Solo didn’t pledge himself to Palpatine, as everyone was afraid he would. He died resisting Palpatine’s call. That was the price he paid. Rey resisted it too, but now she feels there is more Darkness than Light in her. This is the price _she_ is paying. And what’s the point of resisting any further? If she can save Ben, she will turn to the Dark side willingly.

It crosses her mind that this is the kind of thinking that caused Anakin Skywalker’s downfall. But there is no other way. It really doesn’t matter, if Ben can live. She understands now how treacherous and seductive the dark side is, how easy it is to give in to it when it seems to promise you something you care about.

But it doesn’t mean you should stop caring.

Rey presses the palm of her hand to Kylo’s wound, so that her fingers extend up to his still beating heart, and reaches for Darkness. It is not difficult; it’s enough to open the dam holding back all her rage and despair, layers upon layers of it, that are far from spent. The emotion that floods her is so painful and intense she opens her mouth in a mute scream –

“This is not the way.”

It’s this voice again, and this time it’s not in her head. This time it speaks from the outside, as if its owner stood in front of her.

She cries out loud, surprised, when she opens her eyes and sees him. He is kneeling down close to where Kylo’s head rests on the ground, and when Rey jerks back violently, away from him, he grabs her by the wrist and peers at her face.

“This is not the way, Rey,” he repeats. “Believe me. I know.”

He might be Kylo’s age, perhaps slightly younger. He has waves of brown hair, similar length as Kylo’s, incredibly intense eyes, and a scar over his right eye. His face doesn’t look like Kylo’s, but there is certainly something in his facial expression that makes her think there is a resemblance.

He is surrounded by a bluish glow.

“A Force ghost,” Rey whispers. “You’ve been talking to me in my mind. You’ve been helping me. Why? Who are you?”

But she knows the answer to that question the moment the words leave her mouth. It suddenly dawns on her, and not just because it makes perfect sense. She knows this face. She has seen images of him.

“Someone who should have finished what he started instead of leaving it to you,” Anakin Skywalker says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's hoping that the film will be fantastic and that our hopes for a happy end to the Reylo story will not be disappointed. May the Force be with you, and with them!
> 
> I'm leaving on a 3-week holiday, during which it will be difficult to write and post. So, in the worst case scenario, I'll post next time only on my return. Do not worry if you see no new chapter for a few weeks - this story will definitely not be abandoned.
> 
> Hope you liked today's chapter - I might not be able to post new chapters but will definitely read and reply to comments so please keep them coming! Thank you so much for all the love you've given this story so far. It's been an amazing journey for me, and I'm looking forward to the rest of it.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was supposed not to post for a few weeks while on holiday, but then I went to watch TROS and I needed writing as therapy.
> 
> Note: the name of the planet where Palpatine is hiding has now been changed in my story to Exegol, in accordance with the canon. That’s the only thing that will change in this story to follow the canon.

For a moment, Rey contemplates Anakin Skywalker in silence, too shocked to react.

Then she gets very angry.

“Why are you coming to speak to me?” she spits at him. “Why didn’t you ever come to _him_? He is your grandson. He was lost! He talked to you, needed you, and you never answered him!”

“He didn’t talk to me,” Anakin corrects her quietly. “He talked to Vader.”

“Well, I never talked to you, either! And yet here you are. Why are people in your family so terrible to one another? Why is it that nobody was ever there for Ben?”

“I _am_ here for Ben, Rey. I’m here to help you save his life.”

Everything is so painful. The building is shaking, the sounds of walls collapsing and things breaking on the lower levels of the base getting louder and stronger. Kylo is still unconscious, the little life that’s left in him fading with every second. They have no ship. And now she’s talking to a Force Ghost.

Rey’s heart feels like a piece of raw meat in her chest. The top of her stomach is impossibly tight, so tight she can hardly breathe.

“So why are you trying to stop me?” she asks. “The Light isn’t strong enough to bring him back. I have to try something else –”

“Actually, it’s not true that the Light is not strong enough,” Anakin cuts her off. “Force healing is all about using the Light. But you should stop thinking in those terms. The Light and the Darkness are artificial categories. What is the difference between them?”

“The way you reach for the Force. The way you use it,” Rey murmurs.

“Right. To reach for the Light or the Darkness, you use different emotions, or different states of mind, if you prefer. So think about it this way: what are your emotions related to him?”

“I love him,” Rey replies, and remembers again she never told him, not until it was too late. The tears are welling up again –

“So use your love,” Anakin insists. “Not the Light or the Dark side. Just reach for the Force with the love you have for him. And heal with this love. Love has both the Light and the Darkness in it. Such is its nature.”

“I have been healing with the Force,” Rey starts, “But not wounds like this…”

“The principle is the same,” he reminds her. “Just like lifting things of different sizes. Reach into his body with the Force, find the damaged parts, the red lines, and repair them.”

“But if love has both the Light and the Darkness in it, were the Jedi right to avoid attachments because they lead to the Dark side?” Rey asks. Not that it’s important; she’s past caring about turning to the Dark side because of her feelings for Kylo. The only thing that matters is to save him from dying.

“No, they were wrong,” Anakin frowns. It’s interesting, she didn’t know Force Ghosts could get annoyed. But then again, this particular one was always famous for his temper. “The Darkness is around us just like the Light is, and we brush against it constantly. Once you make a choice to connect to the Dark side, it will keep calling to you, but it’s up to you to resist the call, or rather, to make sure you use it in moderation. Always seeking balance, not letting it engulf you. Anger and fear are human emotions as much as happiness and joy, and attachment is human, too. Love is the best thing that can happen to us. It was certainly the best thing that happened to me in my entire life.”

He pauses and Rey gazes at him, as he momentarily withdraws into himself, perhaps remembering the times past, the chances lost, the love wasted.

“Forgoing emotions is wrong,” he resumes, still frowning. “All emotions are important and useful, you just need to control them rather than let them control you. Do you understand?”

“I do,” Rey says. Kylo told her similar things. This is also what she believes, deep down. She knows what she has to do.

She places her hand on Kylo’s wound and closes her eyes. This time it’s not her anger and fear she is reaching for; she pushes these away. Instead, she thinks about their good times. The kisses, the passion they shared in bed, the afterglow, their arms around each other, their legs entangled, her eyes locked with his.

She searches her memories to remember again what she felt in those moments. Floating safely on something warm and steady. Peace. Safety. Warmth. The very physical contentment that came from the sensation of his body enveloping her. The physical expression of affection when she explored his body lovingly and let him explore hers.

And then, other things. The tenderness she feels when she thinks about the hardship and loneliness of his life. Her willingness to make it up to him, to make him happy. The forgiveness and empathy she has offered him, refusing to define him by his past deeds only. The heartbreak of having to reject his hand in Snoke’s throne room. The determination to help him, to stand by his side, to not let him face Palpatine alone.

The wonderful comfort of his company for the last four months, in happy and sad moments. The mutual consolation in the aftermath of Leia’s death, as things progressively got darker. The compatibility when they train and learn together. The pleasure of every conversation. Getting to know each other better and learning what makes the other feel good or bad, happy or nervous, excited or annoyed.

The deep sadness when she realized that Palpatine was in Ben’s head all his life, luring him into the Darkness, giving him nightmares, never leaving him in peace. Her deep grief when she lied by Ben’s side on the floor of Exegol’s throne room, ready to stay with him till the end.

The dreams of a future together, which she has not dwelled upon properly before now. The children she could have with him one day, black-haired, and perhaps a bit troubled, with a touch of Darkness and disquiet in them, whom she and Ben, as parents, would know how to guide and protect.

At this last thought, she gasps as a strong pulse of energy flows from her hands into his body. It feels similar to the Force lightning, yet so different. It’s not terrifying, it’s like the power of a sun: energizing, invigorating, uplifting.

She lets this energy course slowly over her and him. It flows through their bond, too, as if she was giving him some of her own life force. When Rey opens her eyes, she feels slightly giddy, light-headed, the way she does after major physical exertion – and Kylo’s whole body is glowing gently, the wound in his chest closed.

“He has a damaged lung,” she says, “and an internal bleeding. I repaired what I could, but he needs a med bay…”

Anakin nods.

“You have to get him out of here now.”

“But how?” Rey exclaims. “Our shuttle has probably been shot down, nobody is answering. I can’t leave him here and go look for a ship, this building might collapse any time now –”

“Perhaps there is another way,” he smiles and passes her comlink to her.

The comlink is buzzing. She doesn’t know for how long; she didn’t hear it.

“Rey!” Finn’s voice shouts as soon as she presses the button. “Finally! We were getting desperate here!”

“Finn, where are you?! Did the shield open? Are you in the atmosphere?”

“We are in front of this weird ice palace,” Poe’s voice interjects. “The shield is still on, but we broke through it at lightspeed.”

“You penetrated the planetary shield by jumping to lightspeed?! Are you in the _Falcon_?”

“Yes, I’m with Finn, Chewbacca and Jannah. Rey, do you need a lift? I can’t see your shuttle. We’ve been waiting for ten minutes and some weird shit is happening –”

“I have Ben with me,” Rey says, breathless. She looks around but Anakin Skywalker has disappeared; she hasn’t even thanked him. “He’s very seriously injured and unconscious. We have to get him to a med bay. But first I need to get him outside this building. Where are you exactly?”

“Forget it,” Poe says. “Before you manage to transport him anywhere, whole hell will break loose here. You have no idea what it looks like outside. We need to hurry. I see your beacon’s location; why don’t we just bring the ship closer to you?”

“What? But I’m inside the building, Poe –”

She stops as a deafening sound of cracking ice sends vibrations through the floor around her, as if the whole ice structure surrounding the base was falling apart. It gets stronger and Rey covers Ben’s ears with her hands, then also covers his body with hers to protect him, finally throws a Force shield around them.

Ten standard seconds later the stone wall bursts open as the _Falcon_ slams into it, flies through the room and grinds to a halt with a horrible screeching sound just a few metres from the opposite wall, shattering the black throne on its way. As Rey gapes at the ship, the hatch hisses open and the Wookie runs towards her.

“Come on, Rey!” Finn shouts from the top of the ramp. “Chewie will grab Ben!”

* * *

She barely has the time to strap Ben to the bunk bed in the cockpit, cover him with a blanket – it suddenly occurs to her that he must be feeling cold – and strap herself into a seat when Poe punches it. They fly out of the fortress, smashing through the walls and the ice structure on the way.

Outside it’s chaos. As Rey watches through the viewport, stupefied, enormous star destroyers emerge, one after another, from under the dark substance covering the planet’s surface, and rise into the atmosphere. The sky is strewn with them.

“This is not an army of a thousand ships,” Rey whispers. “It’s much bigger.”

“Looks like our little stunt broke this shield permanently,” Poe says as he guides the _Falcon_ through the atmosphere and towards the orbit. “Or maybe they switched it off, I don’t know, because they seem to be packing up.”

Behind them, the ice fortress is slowly disintegrating and collapsing into the dark viscous liquid. Small transports keep shooting out of it, flying in the direction of the large star destroyers. Palpatine’s army is clearly evacuating the base.

“Finn, comm the _Finalizer_,” Rey shouts. “What’s our fleet doing? Are they still here?”

“They have been standing by. But now, with all these enemy ships out there, maybe a battle has already started.”

“The _Finalizer_ is standing by, I’ve just let them know we’re coming,” Jannah says from behind Rey’s chair. Rey turns around and the two women look at each other for the first time face to face, without the holocomm.

Jannah smiles.

“It’s going to be ok,” she pats Rey’s arm. “He will live.”

“You don’t know that,” Rey says as her gaze wanders to the sheet of paper attached to the wall next to the pilot’s seat, today occupied by Poe but usually taken by Chewie.

It’s the drawing Ben made for Chewie on Pasaana.

Jannah follows Rey’s eyes and smiles again.

“The Supreme Leader will live,” she repeats. “We all will, and we will win the war.”

And it helps. And Rey needs that, because she isn’t sure she believes in any of this anymore. Not when she looks at Kylo’s face, still white as a sheet; not when she looks at the sky outside the _Falcon_, peppered with countless black triangular shapes, each of them being a silhouette of an imperial star destroyer preparing for war.

“We’ll dock in fifteen minutes,” Finn says, putting his hand on her shoulder. They can get out of their seats now; they all go to stand around Ben’s bed, and Chewie touches his hairy paw to Ben’s cheek, then wails.

“I know,” Rey says. “I did what I could, I swear. He probably needs a surgery.”

Chewie wails a question.

“Yes, Rey, what actually happened there?” Finn asks. “Did you find Palpatine? Did he hurt Ben?”

“I killed Palpatine,” Rey says. “But before that, I almost killed Ben.”

* * *

She tells them the whole story hurriedly, and from their reaction – wide eyes and silence – it is clear they understand very little. It all sounds like magic to them, which it basically is. Essence transfer, transition of consciousness between bodies… perhaps they think she’s insane.

“Anyway, I did what you asked me to do,” Rey says drily. The bad, rotten, twisted thing inside her – which she could once claim was Palpatine’s voice, but now she must face the fact it’s just her own Darkness – speaks up again. She’s tired, tense and afraid. Their uncomfortable silence is extremely stressful. It reminds her how different they are, how little they can understand of her struggles even if they’re her best friends, and what pressure they put her under.

“You wanted me to kill him if he turned on us. Well, he didn’t. He fought Palpatine but Palpatine was stronger. He took Ben’s body, and I had to kill him. But these are details, right? You wanted Kylo Ren gone, he might soon be gone. He’s hanging on by a thread.”

“It wasn’t like that, Rey,” Finn says sternly, while Jannah looks at him with a frown.

“As if I didn’t know!” Rey explodes, her voice shaking with suppressed tears. “You think I don’t realize that you’d all prefer him to sacrifice himself and conveniently die there? Isn’t that the only thing that would get him redeemed in your eyes? Wouldn’t it be just perfect if this story ended like that – Palpatine dying, us winning the war, me and all of you surviving, and Kylo Ren dying somewhere on the way, doing something noble? Do you think I don’t know that nobody would mourn him for a second?!”

As she screams the last words, all unattached objects in the cockpit – their jackets, an odd wrench, a bag Poe threw on the seat next to him – suddenly rise, lifted by an invisible hand, and her friends take a step away, looking bewildered.

“Rey, your eyes…” Finn whispers.

Where did this anger come from? It was completely uncalled for – they didn’t deserve that, they’d just risked their lives to save her and Ben –

She knows about her eyes! Finn has no idea what she has been through, what both she and Ben have been through. He has no right to judge her!

“Rey,” Poe says, coming up from behind her. So far he’s stayed in the cockpit, at the controls of the ship. He puts his hand on her arm, then removes it as she snarls at him, but doesn’t move away.

“I thought about it a lot,” he says slowly. “I regret what I asked you to do on Pasaana. I didn’t realize – because I didn’t want to – that you had such a strong connection to him. It was a burden you shouldn’t have been asked to carry. It wasn’t fair.”

“Damn right it wasn’t fair!” Rey cries out, as her anger subsides slowly and things stop flying around in the cockpit.

Everyone is looking at her in silence.

“You can’t imagine,” Rey starts, but even as she says it, she knows she won’t be able to explain it to them in any way they could understand. She has already tried, in fact; she has just told them the story once, and now she’s trying to do it again, because she can’t find the right words that would make them understand.

They can’t possibly imagine what it was like to fight Palpatine inside her own head, while knowing everything was lost anyway because Ben was dead. They can’t possibly imagine how she felt, knowing she killed him. They can’t imagine how it still feels, because he might still not make it.

The terrible, numb resignation she experienced when she lied down by his side, preparing to die there together under the rubble of the disintegrating base, is a feeling Rey will never forget – the sad, heart-breaking acceptance that everything is lost and it’s time to surrender. A feeling she hadn’t known until then because she had never prepared for death before. She refused to accept it when Ben was giving up on himself, planning to face Palpatine alone and die; now she knows how it feels to be giving up – how the lack of all hope feels – and she never wants to experience that again.

It’s as if she had aged decades in the last two hours, and she wonders how to find the strength to go through the next few.

“We are docking, Rey,” Finn says. “He will be in a med bay in five minutes.”

She closes her eyes. It’s not over, it’s very far from over, the real war is just beginning, and Kylo is still between life and death.

* * *

They’re all standing by the main viewport of the _Finalizer_ with Admiral Croos and a few other First Order officers. Nobody speaks; the spectacle before their eyes is, to say the least, baffling.

Hundreds and hundreds of Palpatine’s imperial star destroyers are passing by, jumping to lightspeed. They don’t attempt to engage the First Order fleet, even though the First Order and the allied ships are firing at them. They do not return the fire, do not stop to fight; they are not in the mood for it, apparently. They’re running away.

But why?

“Is there another base?” Rey suggests. “Do they have another chain of command that got activated after Palpatine’s death?”

“I’m sure they have a plan B, but I don’t think they’re going to any base,” Croos frowns and speaks into his comlink.

“We have to follow them through hyperspace,” Poe says. “We need to know where they’re going.”

“It could be a trap,” Finn warns.

“If they wanted to trap us into a battle, they’d do it here,” Jannah speaks from behind them. “They have more ships than we do. No, they’re after something else. I think –”

Down below them, Exegol suddenly explodes, as if a bomb had been detonated in its core, into a myriad fiery pieces that scatter across the sky.

“Engage hyperdrive!” Croos shouts to the bridge crew. “Or we’ll get hit by the debris!”

They’re in hyperspace a few seconds later. Watching the blue streaks of light through the viewport, Rey thinks of Palpatine’s secret labs, clone factories, and technological secrets that are now lost forever with his base on Exegol. Now, they will never know the full truth of what he’s been doing on this world and for how long. There is some relief in it, to be honest, because she’s not sure she’s ready to know some of those things; but at the same time there is anxiety. What if there are other bases, other projects, other traps waiting for them?

Where are all these enemy ships going? What is their plan now that their emperor is gone? Who is in charge? And how long will the _Finalizer_ and the rest of the fleet need to stay in hyperspace, tracking them?

* * *

Two standard hours later, in the med bay, Kylo is out of surgery. His lung has been repaired, his other internal injuries taken care of. He is supposed to wake up soon.

Rey sits beside the bacta tank in which his whole body, except for his head, is immersed, and strokes his cheek. She combs his hair again with her fingers, just like she did in Palpatine’s throne room when she thought it was the last time she was touching him.

She doesn’t trust all these good signs of recovery. Something in her died when she thought he was dead, and she can’t quite resurrect that part of herself. The deep horror of facing the rest of her life without him, she can’t quite shake it off.

Every second she expects to wake up in some alternate reality, in which he’s gone. Or they’re still stuck on Exegol, with a battle raging above their heads, one or both of them mortally wounded and about to die. Maybe this is all a mind trick, an illusion created by Palpatine to torture her with false hope. Maybe Palpatine has won and is keeping her in one of his clone tanks, creating a whole different universe in her head.

Or maybe not, but he did something to her mind when he was in it. Something that awakened even more of her Darkness, and it will never go to sleep again. Something that made her flash yellow eyes at her friends on the _Falcon_ and almost Force-choke them without any reason.

Rey can’t think straight anymore.

“Wake up,” she whispers, squeezing Kylo’s hand. “Please wake up, or I will go mad. I can’t take it anymore.”

The door of the med bay hisses open behind her.

“How is he?” Finn asks, coming closer and sitting by her side.

“They say he should wake up soon.”

They remain silent for some time.

“Rey,” Finn starts, “I know what you’re thinking. We don’t understand, we can’t even begin to understand. But it doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it. It doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

“I’m losing my mind, Finn. I don’t know anymore who I am. It’s been too much –”

He takes her hand.

“It will pass,” he says. “I’m here for you. We all are. And I want you to be happy,” he continues, glancing at Kylo. “I see things differently now. I regret some things I said, to you and to him. You understand?”

She nods.

“And how are you holding up?” she asks.

Finn and Jannah have found their parents on Lothal. They are both alive, and it turned out they had one more child after their first two were kidnapped by the First Order. So Finn and Jannah have a little brother, a boy of fifteen. Because of the war, the whole family couldn’t spend as much time together as they’d like to in the last four months, but they did meet a few times.

Rey is happy for Finn.

They talk for some time, they even laugh about some nonsense Poe said, and the burden seems a tad less heavy, the clamps on her heart and lungs letting up slightly.

But time passes and they’re still in hyperspace tracking the enemy, they still have no idea what the end destination of this chase is, and Kylo is still unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TROS spoilers ahead! I know this is not a movie review site so if you don’t feel like reading it and just want to enjoy the story, this is perfectly fine with me. I just felt like sharing some thoughts; if you enjoyed the film and these comments upset you, I am sorry, and please let’s agree to disagree.
> 
> I find it difficult to get over how tragic the story of Ben Solo is. Manipulated throughout his life by Palpatine, he had literally one moment of happiness before dying (Anakin had a few years with Padme…). I hoped the old trope of redemption by sacrifice was a little tired after the original trilogy, and I really thought they would move past it, to differentiate Ben’s destiny from Vader’s and to end the whole saga on a more positive note of second chances and atonement. It would have been so much more interesting to see Ben face his past after the war, try to make amends, interact with the Resistance, not to mention, of course, have a chance to develop the relationship with Rey. The filmmakers seem to have wanted to cater to both parts of the fandom at once – those who thought he was an irredeemable villain who needed to die, and those who wanted to see him happy with Rey. But it just doesn’t work if you try to please everyone at the same time. So, even if we saw that the two of them loved each other, his death actually felt even more heart-breaking because of it. 
> 
> In the end, all the Skywalkers die in this saga, and all their romantic relationships end unhappily. Ben dies the youngest and is the only one whom nobody mourns. Not even Rey is shown mourning him, we don’t see his Force Ghost next to Luke and Leia nor any other reference to him at the end. Vader got a pyre and his Force Ghost showed up at the end of episode 6... but Ben saves Rey, gets his one kiss, and then is conveniently dispatched, while everyone else lives on and the galaxy celebrates.
> 
> Beyond the ending, this film really disappointed me for all the reasons already cited by critics in many reviews (bad storytelling, plot rushed and full of holes, clumsy backtracking on TLJ with Rey’s origin, puzzling appearance of Palpatine out of the blue and without any explanation, equally puzzling absence of Anakin in the conclusion of the Skywalker saga, etc.). But there’s nothing to be done about it - it will now remain for ever the canonical conclusion of this trilogy and of the whole SW saga. This really upsets me.
> 
> All we can do is tell our own stories. So, coming back to this story, I hope you enjoyed this chapter; let me know what you think.


	16. Chapter 16

When Kylo opens his eyes, he is sitting on the ground, his back against a tree. He’s in a lush forest, a pleasant breeze is blowing, and the soothing sounds of nature surround him. It’s very peaceful. This is the first time in years that he has been able to rest peacefully in a natural place.

He does need to rest. He’s very tired. There is a dull pain in his chest, an echo of something that’s happened and that he should probably remember, but he doesn’t. The pain is not strong so he decides to ignore it and relax.

“What are you doing, Ben?”

He glances up reluctantly to check who’s talking to him. A man of his age or slightly younger stands above him and eyes him curiously.

His face is vaguely familiar, even if Kylo can’t recall ever actually meeting the person. He decides not to dwell on it; he doesn’t want to know who that is, so he doesn’t say anything and ignores the stranger, hoping he will leave.

The man sighs and takes a seat on the ground next to Kylo.

“Where are we, Ben?” he asks.

It’s a good question, to which Kylo doesn’t have the answer. But what does it matter? They’re in a nice, peaceful, green place, and this is enough for him.

“Ben. Look at me.”

He complies reluctantly.

“Do you know who I am?”

Kylo sighs.

“You’re my grandfather. You took your sweet time, and it’s too late now.”

“You were not ready earlier,” the man replies, his face clouding over. “You wouldn’t have listened.”

“Go away,” Kylo says.

“Rey needs you,” his grandfather insists. It might be a dream, and just a moment ago Kylo really wanted to keep dreaming it because, for once, it was a dream free of pain. He vaguely remembers a lot of pain. At his grandfather’s mention of Rey, the pain flares up, and now Kylo is angry.

“No, she doesn’t. On the contrary, I should stay away from her. I put her in danger. I am literally the last thing she needs.”

“She doesn’t seem to think so,” Anakin Skywalker replies levelly, resting his back against the tree and turning his body towards Kylo. “Last time I checked, she was preparing to die next to you on the floor of Palpatine’s throne room on Exegol. Does this ring a bell, Ben?”

There it is, the sharp pain again, and a sudden anxiety at the back of his mind.

“But she’s safe now?” Kylo asks uneasily. The other man studies him for a moment before replying.

“You could say that. She’s safe for now.”

Good. Kylo turns away from him. The peaceful mood has vanished, he feels very sad now and doesn’t remember why. He needs to protect Rey, and the best way to do it is to stay away from her. So he will stay here.

“She loves you,” his grandfather says, and Kylo wants to scream because he knows this. He can’t remember how though; did she tell him? When?

How come he can’t remember anything?

“Rey is twenty years old,” he spits at Anakin. “She will meet and love other men. She will forget me. Two years from now, I will just be an episode from her past, a nostalgic memory, perhaps, but overall, a memory associated with bad times. She will think of me sometimes and be sad for a bit, but she will be surrounded by her friends, live somewhere nice and green, run a Jedi academy...”

“Amazing. Every word of what you’ve just said is wrong.”

Oh, Kylo knows this voice. Too well. And the exact same words, previously spoken on Crait, where his uncle faced him down, _tricked him_, trying to stall so that the Resistance could escape.

“If you do not come back, Rey will never get over it,” Luke Skywalker says, his eyes boring into Kylo mercilessly. He’s seated on the ground, on Kylo’s other side. The three Skywalker men sitting under one tree in what was supposed to be a _peaceful fucking forest_ – what a touching family reunion.

“Two years from now, she will be alone, just like she was before, just like she always feared she would be. Counting the days again, scratching new marks on the wall in a new home she will make for herself in the middle of nowhere, hoping against reason that somehow, some day, she will get to see you again. Always craving the kind of connection she had with you, knowing she can never have it with anyone else. Is that how you want this story to end for her, Ben?”

“You!” Kylo hisses, glaring at Luke. “You have no place here – I don’t want to see you! _Do not talk to me about Rey_. Do not talk to me about anything!”

“You have to let go of this anger, Ben,” Luke says somewhat condescendingly. As usual. Kylo feels like wiping the little smile off his uncle’s face with his fist. “It isn’t helping. It makes you blind to many important things.”

“You think you failed her,” Anakin states rather than asks, before Kylo has the time to reply to Luke. It is ironic, really; for years, neither of them was there for him, and now they’re both showing up and talking over each other. What’s the occasion? What’s so important suddenly?

And yes, Anakin is right, Kylo thinks he failed Rey. He was too weak, he wasn’t good enough, he put her in danger and left her alone, he just can’t remember the exact circumstances. All he knows is that it’s too late, he needs to rest, and Rey is better off without him. Everyone is better off without him, because he only brings people disappointment and misery. So he will do them all a favour and stay here forever.

Tears are flowing down his cheeks; he’s very angry at his grandfather and his uncle for disturbing his rest, for coming so late, after all has been said and done. Luke is heartless as usual, painting a grim picture of Rey’s future; and as for Anakin, Kylo had so many questions for him, he dreamt so long of seeing him, and now that Anakin has finally come, there’s nothing Kylo can think of to say to him.

“It’s too late,” he whispers, his eyes tight shut. “I saw it in the Force. I saw how it ends for me.”

He is ready to go. It’s better like this for everybody.

Suddenly his body jolts with pain and this time it’s not vague or metaphorical, nor is it coming from his interior. It’s a very external pain, in fact, caused by a sharp blow delivered to his shin. He lunges forward, ready to attack –

And finds himself thrown backwards and pinned to the tree trunk. In front of him stands a small green creature with large spiky ears, frowning. It appears the creature has just hit him with a stick.

Again, Kylo has the impression he knows who that is, but before he has the time to gather his thoughts –

“Set in stone, the future never is,” the little creature utters, in a voice that is strikingly authoritative for someone of this size. “On your actions, it depends. The Force shows you what may, not what will be.”

Its voice is wise and ancient, and when it looks straight into Kylo’s eyes, he has the impression the green creature sees into his very heart.

“The girl Rey is suffering. Save your life, she did. Time to pay your debt to her, young Skywalker, and to defend the galaxy you wanted to lead.”

The green man extends his stick and pokes Kylo in the chest, right where his heart is.

“Rise!” he bellows.

The poke isn’t strong but as the end of the stick connects with Kylo’s body, he is hit with a ball of pure energy that makes him jump as if he was being electrocuted. The hair stands on his head, he gasps and loses his breath.

* * *

When he comes to, coughing and wheezing, he is sitting up in a bacta tank in what looks like a med bay. He’s alone. There is no pain but his whole body is tingling, as if he had just been shot by something as powerful as the Force lightning.

What was that dream…?

Was that green thing…?

He will think about it later. He’s filled with a strange sense of urgency, but it takes him a few seconds to get his bearings. He’s almost naked, wearing only his underwear. Examining his body quickly, he doesn’t find any injuries.

When he touches his chest just below his heart, another ball of light explodes, this time in his head, and in a fraction of a second, he remembers everything.

He shot Palpatine – Xeno –_ with lightning_.

Rey killed Xeno.

Palpatine entered Kylo’s mind.

They fought in his head.

Palpatine won.

As he was losing that fight – and he prefers not to go back to those moments – Kylo remembers asking Rey to end him. He remembers the excruciating pain of being impaled on her lightsaber.

So she did it. She did what he made her promise to do.

But now he’s awake and has no injuries, so... has she healed him? Or has someone else?

Where is Rey?

Where is Palpatine?

What is this place, first of all? This is definitely not Exegol, which is the last place Kylo remembers.

He reaches out with the Force and finds he’s on the _Finalizer_. Rey is here, too. He pulls at the bond –

And is hit by a wave of darkness – anger, hate, fear, despair – so powerful that he retreats in horror before she even notices his presence.

Did Palpatine transfer his consciousness to Rey after she ran Kylo through with her saber?

No, no, no. Not that. NOT THAT. Not a Rey-Palpatine monster.

He crawls out of the tank and sheds his underwear. He’s all sticky from bacta; no time for a shower, so he wipes himself hastily with a towel and dons the clothes that, luckily, have been left for him next to the tank. It’s a simple long-sleeved black top, fresh underwear and a pair of black trousers. He throws the door of the med bay open with the Force and runs out to the corridor.

* * *

He sprints across the _Finalizer_’s halls toward the bridge. He’s quickly spotted by a group of troopers, who speak into their comlinks; he will be expected. Perhaps he will not be welcome. Perhaps his officers are dead, and the bridge is now manned by Palpatine’s clones.

But if so, why would they keep him alive and leave him without surveillance? Why would they try to heal him?

No, this is something else. He feels for the bond again, and this time Rey responds. She is not possessed by Palpatine, but she is in great torment, very dark and very afraid.

As Kylo bursts into the bridge area, he spots Admiral Croos first – he has never been so relieved to see him – and just after that, he sees Rey, who turns around and cries out his name. The bond comes to life and in an instant, images from Rey’s mind assail Kylo, showing him what happened to her on Exegol from the moment he went down. They arrive too fast, all of them at the same time, mixed with her emotions, so he can’t make full sense of them, but he gets the gist. He can see her with the red saberstaff, shooting Palpatine with lightning, then preparing to perform a dark side ritual over Kylo’s own lifeless body, and Anakin Skywalker appearing to her.

He gasps and staggers from the shock of it.

There will be time to talk about this. Now, the bridge is swarming with his officers, everyone is running around, clearly alarmed, and Rey is in a pitiful state. She looks as if she hadn’t slept for days, she’s shaking, and her eyes – her eyes –

Kylo takes a step towards her, puts his hand on her cheek and gazes into her yellow, red-brimmed, full of bad fire eyes.

“You are awake!” Rey sobs, gripping his wrist and clutching it so strongly he hisses with pain. The Dark side gives her unnatural physical strength. “I am sorry, I am so sorry, Kylo, I tried everything, I can’t save our fleet –”

He knows that already. One glance towards the viewport as he entered the bridge was enough. For some reason, they are above Coruscant, which is burning. It must have been under intense orbital bombardment and its shield must have failed. The planet is a ball of fire now, impossible to save, and the sky above it is strewn with imperial star destroyers, just like in the nightmare Kylo and Rey had, the nightmare Palpatine sent them. Everything they saw in those nightmares and visions – the red beam striking Espirion, the fight in a forest bathed by red haze, the ice fortress, the black throne, and now the fleet of a thousand ships, or more, by the looks of it – came true.

Including Rey’s vision of a dark version of herself.

_Except_ Kylo’s own vision of how all this would end for him. The vision he never told her about, the vision that almost came to pass.

Almost.

Again, this is not the right time to think about this. He is _not_ lying dead on the cold floor in some Sith fortress in the Unknown Regions. He’s got a second chance and he will use it. Palpatine’s ships – commanded by stars know whom, since Palpatine died by Rey’s hand, or rather by Rey’s mind – keep firing at Coruscant, the symbolic seat of the Republic, and at Kylo’s fleet. By a quick count, there are only two hundred or so First Order and allied ships gathered here, the same ones that were at Exegol, and it’s clearly not enough. They’re tragically outnumbered by the enemy.

Why they are here, why the final battle is taking place here, he has no idea. The last thing he saw in Rey’s mind was her healing him on Exegol. How did she manage to get him out of that ice fortress? How long has he been unconscious? When he examined himself earlier to check for injuries, he felt the stubble on his face. He must have slept for at least a day.

He could search for more answers in Rey’s mind or simply ask her, but it’s just not possible at the moment. Rey doesn’t look like she can put together one coherent sentence. She might actually collapse. And the most heart-breaking part is that she is apologising to him. Apologising for not being able to do everything on her own.

“Sorry?” Kylo repeats, stroking her cheek. “You’re sorry, Rey?”

She is a horrific, ugly, terrifying sight with those mad yellow eyes, and his heart goes out to her.

“Rey, you killed Palpatine. _You are a hero._ You did the most difficult part, and I left you alone. Let me now take care of the rest.”

“I crashed three of their ships,” Rey hisses. “I managed to blow them up with the Force – look, they’re still burning out there!”

It is beyond his worst fears. But how did it happen? She won, she sent Palpatine to Chaos, then she healed with the Light. How can she be so dark now?”

“You were not waking up!” Rey sobs. “We were in hyperspace for more than twenty-four standard hours, tracking them, and I thought you would never wake up again. I needed to punish them! I wanted to make them burn!”

“You need to rest now, Rey,” Kylo says. “You need to sleep. I am sorry I wasn’t here for you, I am sorry you had to deal with it alone, but I’m back now.”

“Luke came to talk to me! He said I was falling to the Dark side! I told him to fuck off!” Rey explodes, her face contorted in a horrible scowl, and Kylo actually shudders.

“But now you’re here, we could still prevail,” she resumes frantically. “We can subdue them with the Force if we act together. We’ll destroy them, and we will finally control the galaxy, so that this never happens again! From now on, we will make the rules!”

“I am sorry, Rey,” Kylo repeats softly and gathers her in his arms. Never mind that the whole bridge crew are watching this dialogue, stupefied, and that they have all seen the state Rey is in. He wraps himself around her as she sobs violently, inconsolable.

Then he pulls away and places his hand on her forehead. She glances up at him and frowns –

“Sleep,” Kylo says and she drops unconscious into his arms. He catches her and turns to Croos.

“Admiral, get the medics. Rey needs to be transported to her quarters and made comfortable. She will stay under for some time. Meanwhile –”

He places Rey in one of the empty officer seats and turns again to Croos who has just finished giving orders via his comlink. Croos himself looks haggard and exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept for quite some time, and he certainly hasn’t shaved recently.

“It’s all right,” Kylo says. “I’m taking back command. Let’s finish this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If my chapters had titles, the title of this one could be... guesses, anyone? That's right - "The Rise of Skywalker".  
Note that in this story, Force ghosts are not all busy helping Rey only. They also find time for Ben. And let's admit it, a Star Wars story without Master Yoda would just not be complete :-)
> 
> I'm still away so next chapter might be longer in the making, but it will be worth it, I promise. In the meantime, please let me know how you like today's chapter - and thank you, as usual, for all the fantastic feedback so far.


	17. Chapter 17

“We followed them through hyperspace for more than a standard day cycle,” Admiral Croos says, rubbing his tired eyes so as to stay sharp, as he and Kylo stand in front of the _Finalizer_’s main viewport, the battle raging outside. “Then they dropped out in the Core two hours ago and started the bombardment.”

“So it’s not just Coruscant.”

“No. Many other Core Worlds are under attack, although the bulk of their fleet is here.”

“It’s like Order 66,” Kylo says, and since Croos looks confused, he explains. “At the beginning of the Galactic Empire, Palpatine issued an order to the Clone army to kill all the Jedi. This is how the Jedi Order ceased to exist. This time, too, he must have conditioned the clones to execute his last order – attack the Core – in the event of his death.”

“Their army must be several thousand ships strong. We have several hundred here and more on the way. All our allies have responded, everyone apart from the other Core Worlds is sending their fleet here, but it is taking time. Reinforcements keep arriving, yet we are still largely outnumbered.”

Kylo watches as new ships continue to drop out of hyperspace around them. Ships of all types and sizes, belonging to his allies, including small obscure Outer Rim Worlds which, he knows well, do not even own a real war fleet. The work of four months has rendered results. His Alliance is up and running. It’s astounding and uplifting that so many have accepted to place their faith in the First Order and answered the call –

But it’s not enough. Not against several thousand imperial star destroyers. So he will see them all die here, the last ship of their joint fleet blown to pieces in front of him.

Swarms of TIE-fighters whizz past the viewport, trying to take out the enemy’s cannons, but Palpatine’s fleet is sending their own fighters after them, and because of the difference in numbers they’re taking out Kylo’s and his allies’ ships faster than the other way round. At this rate, the Alliance will have no ships left in the next few hours. No clever tactic, no new strategy, no innovative battle formation is going to win them this fight. They’d need at least two thousand additional ships in the next half an hour or so to even stand a chance to turn the tide of the battle. Dameron may have taken out a dreadnought with one X-wing and one bomber, but how many did he lose in the process? And how many enemy ships must be taken out here before the Alliance could claim victory?

“Is this the royal fleet of Naboo?” Kylo asks, gesturing to his left. Croos confirms. It stirs something in Kylo’s heart to know his grandmother’s world has sent so many ships and troops to help him.

He turns to Croos.

“Did you try to hail the imperial ships?”

“We did. They’re not answering. I believe, sir, we must start considering our options.”

“Let me hear your ideas, and quickly,” Kylo says, glancing outside. They cannot waste much more time.

“The superweapon we have captured is not fully operational yet. But it could function partially. We could use it now. We could fire at Coruscant and blow up most of Palpatine’s fleet with it, while our fleet would jump to lightspeed seconds before the impact.”

“You want to blow Coruscant up?” Kylo asks, stupefied.

“Coruscant is lost,” Croos states firmly. “Nobody and nothing will be able to live on this planet for decades. And I’m not even sure the weapon has currently the capacity to destroy a planet completely. In any case, it gives us a chance to either deal a decisive blow, or at the very least, to do some serious damage and distract the enemy.”

“What if they jump to lightspeed as well? They’ll have a few seconds after they realize what’s happening. They’ll see us gone and they’ll follow us. It might all be for nothing. And no, I am not blowing up a whole planet. I cannot do that.”

Croos nods, as if he expected that answer.

“Then my next suggestion is that we retreat.”

“Retreat where? They will just move the battle wherever we go.”

“Not necessarily. Their primary target seems to be the Core, not our fleet.”

“Are you suggesting we should sacrifice the Core?”

“We need to regroup. Let’s rendezvous with our allies in some remote location and then come back to the Core in stronger numbers, all of us together, to fight one last battle.”

Kylo shakes his head.

“By that time, the whole Core will be destroyed.”

“I’m not sure the Core can be saved,” Croos argues quietly. “And in that case, we must think of a more permanent, strategic retreat for the First Order fleet, to cut our losses.”

“What do you mean?”

“The First Order rose from the ashes of the Empire. It rebuilt and regrouped in the Unknown Regions for years, waiting for its opportunity. I’m talking secret bases in an uncharted territory. We could do this again.”

“It’s Palpatine who built the Order,” Kylo frowns. “Snoke was Palpatine’s apprentice. His puppet. Do you think Palpatine’s army is not aware of the existence of bases in which the Order was hiding previously?”

“Then we run to a new place. We build a new base.”

“I am not running. I am not leaving them the galaxy to destroy while we are hiding, licking our wounds. We’ve spent months signing all these alliance agreements, and now you’re telling me to abandon all our allies?”

“It’s this or the end for all of us,” Croos says. “Let me be clear, sir, I don’t want to abandon our allies any more than you do. I have negotiated the alliance agreements by your side, and I’d fight to honour them, if there was the slightest chance of victory. But there isn’t. We will all die here –”

“No. I want this finished, once and for all.”

Croos is silent, clearly out of options, and Kylo looks at him closely.

“Do you trust me as your commander in chief, Admiral Croos?” he asks. The other man’s eyes shoot to his face.

“Of course I do, sir.”

“Do you think our allies trust me enough… to execute an order that might seem strange?”

“What kind of order, sir?”

“What if at one point, I ordered everyone to cease the fire? Do you think they will listen? Do you think Coruscant’s fleet will trust me enough to obey that order?”

“Are you talking surrender, sir?”

“Absolutely not. I’m going to try something… different.”

“Something Force-related?”

“Yes. But not what Rey did. I’m not blowing up any of their ships with the Force.”

“What she did was pretty spectacular.”

“That’s the whole point. What I’m going to do isn’t spectacular at all. In fact, you won’t see anything happen. So when I tell you it’s worked, you’ll only have my word for it in the first minute or so, and it’s very important that everyone ceases the fire as soon as I say. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” Croos replies, looking outside the viewport. “But I suggest you first speak to our allies, sir.”

“I am not going to tell them about my plan. Nobody will understand. They’ll think I’m crazy.”

“You have to tell them something.”

Kylo sighs.

“This is why I asked if you trusted me,” he reminds him. “You tell them. They all know you by now. They trust you. It will sound less insane if a good soldier such as yourself tells them to do that.”

Croos is silent again, gazing outside.

“On your mark, everyone ceases the fire, is that it?” he asks.

“Yes. I cannot promise it will work. But it’s the only chance we have.”

Croos nods.

“And if it doesn’t work?”

Kylo considers.

“We’ll take your first option,” he replies finally. “The superweapon. But I hope it won’t come to this.”

“Understood. I’ll talk to our allies on a secure channel. Will Rey be all right, sir?”

Kylo sighs.

“We’ll see when she wakes up.”

Croos turns to the crew and quickly speaks into his comlink. The message is recorded and instantly relayed to the First Order fleet and the allies. There’s no time to wait for everyone’s agreement. The longer they wait, the bigger the risk that their coded message is spotted and decrypted by the enemy.

Kylo remains by the viewport, his back towards his crew, and closes his eyes. He shuts out the noises of the bridge. The surroundings disappear and when he opens his eyes again, he is on the beach, looking at the deep blue of an ocean.

* * *

He could guess the peaceful place deep inside his mind would look like this: a sea landscape, reminding him of his home world of Chandrila. Why did he see the lush forest instead, in the dream he had while immersed in a bacta tank? It must have been a subconscious connection to Rey. Rey loves green places. This is why Kylo had that screen with an image of Ajan Kloss ordered for her quarters. He looked at it for a long time when the artwork first arrived, imagining what her life and training were on that world. He also thought of all the places in the galaxy he had been to without ever really seeing and truly enjoying any of them.

One place he would choose to go to if he could, if he survived all this, just to rest, is the seaside. A place like the one he can see now in his mind.

The blue waves lap against the sandy shore and the Force surrounds him. When he stretches out his fingers, the threads of the Force connect him to all the living things and lifeless objects around him. He feels them all, he also feels the bond with Rey, who is still unconscious. He closes the bond off carefully so as not to wake her up, and extends his awareness further.

“Be with me,” he whispers. “I need you. I cannot do this alone.”

And after an eternity, or perhaps it’s just several seconds, a reply comes.

“You are not alone,” Anakin Skywalker says.

* * *

Kylo opens his eyes again.

He’s back on the bridge.

“This will be fun,” his grandfather, standing on his right-hand side, says, and indicates to Kylo’s left.

Kylo groans. He doesn’t even need to look. He knows who is there.

“You need all the help you can get,” Luke reminds him. He sounds amused, even though he must have noticed Kylo is less than thrilled to see him. For some reason, both Force Ghosts – his grandfather and his uncle – seem to be in an excellent mood.

“So, you’re thinking battle meditation,” Anakin states.

“I see no other way.”

“Me neither. But these numbers – and in several locations, too – this requires some power.”

“Are we three going to be enough?” Kylo asks.

“I don’t think so. This is why I propose a little refinement of the technique. Look around.”

Around them, the whole area is glowing blue.

“Not all of them can manifest in a physical form,” Anakin explains. “Not all of them need or want to be seen. But all the Jedi are here for you, Ben. We all came to help Rey, and now we’re coming to help you.”

When Kylo doesn’t say anything, Anakin nods, as if he understood his grandson’s mixed emotions.

“Have you heard of a Force meld?” he asks.

“Connecting the minds of a group of Jedi so that they can act as a single person, drawing strength from one another. I know that. But does it work with Force Ghosts?”

“We’ll see,” Luke says. “It’s not like we’ve ever tried it before. But it could be very powerful in battle meditation. And given that we’re only acting through you…”

“It will create a sort of a Force vergence around you,” Anakin finishes. “You will become a Force nexus. You will be able to influence more minds with much more power.”

“The risks?” Kylo asks. Anakin shrugs, and not for the first time Kylo thinks he would really enjoy knowing his grandfather alive – if Anakin hadn’t turned to the Dark side, that is. He has the cheekiness, the lightness, the recklessness Kylo can relate to.

A bit like Han Solo, as if Leia had chosen a man similar to the father she never knew.

“There are always risks,” Anakin replies and winks at him.

“You’ve always been very good at influencing minds,” Luke reminds Kylo. “It will work, kid.”

Kylo breathes, closes his eyes and opens himself up to the Force.

* * *

It’s neither gradual nor gentle. The sensation is similar to what he experienced half an hour ago in his bacta dream when Yoda hit him on the chest with a stick: a sphere of light exploding in his skull and in his chest at the same time.

Then, it starts to feel different. His whole being is pulsating, transcending the boundaries of his physical body, until he has no body anymore. He is now a Force Ghost himself, a physical manifestation of the living Force, a luminous being. A concentrated wellspring through which pure energy flows.

In this state of heightened awareness, he hears them whisper to him.

_Feel the Force._

_Rise with the Force._

_Let the Force carry you._

“Be with me,” he repeats quietly, time and time again, until these are not words anymore, until the words become the connection itself, and he rises above the _Finalizer_’s bridge, reaches out, his energy seeping through the matter, outside his star destroyer, as he taps into the Force accumulated in him and surrounding him, the Force of all the Jedi, connected.

He finds himself looking at the battle raging outside from above, in the silence of space.

He sees into the interior of every enemy ship, those above Coruscant and those thousands of light years away, above the other Core Worlds. He sees them all in the Force. He sees all the living beings on the ships. The commanders, the troops, their movements, their plans, their determination.

He reaches inside their minds and whispers.

He could simply dominate their wills and issue an order to initiate an auto-destruct sequence. It does cross his mind, it would be easier, faster, less risky –

_But it’s not the Jedi way._

As their minds and wills are so closely connected now, Kylo hardly knows whether it’s his own inner voice or that of the Jedi whose power he is tapping into. It’s not very important, because he knows now what is right and what is wrong, and he knows what he has to do.

He tells Palpatine’s clones the truth of what has been done to them. Infusing doubt and shame into their minds, showing images of destruction and death, the consequences of their actions, making them shudder at what they have done, at what they’re doing right now.

He is tapping into the Dark side, too. Battle meditation, when used against the enemy, is a Dark side skill. It drains their morale, preys on their doubts and fears. It’s essentially manipulation.

But what if it’s for a good cause? What if he could spare everyone’s lives at the end of it? Would it still be so bad?

It has never been used like this, he is sure of it. It has been used in the past either to boost the morale of own troops or to demoralize the enemy so as to subdue them more easily.

But his idea is to save everyone. Further slaughter is pointless.

The clones’ minds are weak. They have been conditioned to be pliable. They do not resist his intrusion too much.

They listen.

He delivers his message with such force that he can feel their collective will waver, as their confusion, terror, sadness and suffering grow exponentially. He exerts more pressure and when their minds bend, it feels almost as if he had bent them down physically.

But he does not crush them.

Well done, his grandfather whispers to him in the Force. It is a peculiar state – as if they were all one, Kylo and the other Jedi, Kylo and the universe, Kylo and the Force, of which he is the nexus now, the focal point. Yet, at the same time, he is separate.

He can feel the moment Palpatine’s officers give the order to their troops, and he opens his eyes.

Behind him, Admiral Croos watches, stunned. The whole bridge area is glowing and when Kylo looks down at himself, his body is glowing, too.

“Now,” he says. “Cease the fire immediately. They will surrender.”

As Croos presses a button on his comlink, Kylo looks outside the viewport.

A few seconds later everything stops. The capital ships are hanging in space. The fighters are hovering, as if uncertain. Nobody moves.

And then, the comms dashboards start flashing.

“They are surrendering,” Croos says slowly.

“So it has worked.”

“What would you like us to do now, sir? Should we strike?”

“No. We take command of their ships. Give an order to board each of their star destroyers. There will be no resistance.”

His head is throbbing, he feels depleted and dizzy, as if he had been flying upside-down in space for too long, and a dull pain in his chest flares up again.

“I need to sit down,” he manages before he slides to the ground and everything goes black.

His last thought is that he was right when he suspected the effort was going to kill him.

* * *

In the dim light of an early dawn – another place in his mind, a strange, very tired place – Kylo, curled down on the ground, watches the green creature hovering silently above him in the air.

“Master Yoda,” he utters. “Am I dead? Am I a Force Ghost now?”

Yoda smiles.

“A dead hero, you want to be, young Skywalker? Sacrifice yourself, hmmm? No. Alive you are. Passed out from the effort.”

Kylo scrambles to a sitting position and takes a deep breath. He’s not sure yet whether to rejoice or worry.

“Ben Solo,” Yoda utters softly, his wise eyes watching Kylo gently. There’s none of the severity he displayed previously when he appeared to Kylo in his dream. “Come back to us, you have.”

“Have I though?” Kylo asks sceptically. “Have I really come back? Because I essentially feel the same as before, a few days or even a few months ago.”

Yoda chuckles.

“Conflicted we all feel, at times,” he admits. “Some more than others. How you act, not how you feel, matters. Coming back to the Light is not a single moment. A long process it can be. It can start when the darkness seems the deepest.”

The moment Kylo killed Han Solo. The moment the conflict split his spirit to the bone, as Snoke said. The moment he started doubting Snoke. The moment his connection with Rey started.

“I will never turn to the Light completely,” Kylo says.

Yoda nods, deep in thought.

“Your own way you have. Wrong we were to create a divide between the Light and the Dark. Too afraid of darkness, we were. Old masters are dead now. You and Rey will start a new Jedi Order. New rules you will make.”

“After everything I have done, I deserved to die, not to start anything new,” Kylo utters.

“That may well be,” Yoda agrees calmly and smiles again. “But instead, survive you did. Death or survival, there is no third way. If another chance you got, use it wisely. Make amends.”

“It won’t change anything. It won’t bring the dead back.”

“Live with consequences of our actions we all must. The fate of all sentient beings it is, young Skywalker. Forgotten is nothing. But we must live on.”

Yoda leans forward, bringing himself closer to Kylo’s face.

“Your time to become one with the Force is not now,” he whispers. “Your destiny is not yet fulfilled, Ben Solo.”

* * *

Rey opens her eyes slowly because it hurts. She feels groggy, her head impossibly heavy, as if she had a hungover. She did drink alcohol a few times late into the night, with the Resistance, and she always hated waking up the day after. It feels like that now. She also barely remembers the moments before she fell asleep, because everything is tainted with darkness.

The Darkness.

The battle.

The fleet!

She bolts from the bed so violently she knocks her head against the headboard. She fell asleep! How could she –

“Rey.”

Her eyes dart towards the voice and – there he is. There is Ben. Sitting at the foot of her bed, his back against the wall, watching her anxiously. He looks worn out. When her eyes lock with his, he raises his palms in a peaceful, calming gesture.

“You… you knocked me out with the Force!” Rey exclaims.

“I’m sorry. I had to, you were too far gone, and you wouldn’t listen –”

Before he has a chance to finish, Rey crawls across the bed and climbs onto his lap, then wraps her arms around his neck.

“You’re alive!” she sobs. “Are you ok?”

“I’m all right,” he murmurs into her neck. “Just very, very tired.”

“Ben, Ben!” Rey repeats helplessly because her throat is so tight she’s unable to say anything else. She covers his face with feverish kisses. “You’re alive, you’re back, it’s not a dream…”

“Unless this _is_ a dream and in reality, I’m dead. I haven’t figured it out yet.”

“We’re both alive,” Rey says, pulling away and looking into his eyes, which are surrounded by deep dark shadows. He barely has the strength to smile. Tears come, and the words – the important words – are at the tip of her tongue.

But as she opens her mouth to finally say them, she remembers the war.

“Ben, how is the fleet?”

“It’s fine. We have won.”

“What? How?”

“I used battle meditation.”

“Oh, wow!” Rey utters. She stares at him in awe. “I only read about it… I had no idea you could do it.”

“Neither did I,” he admits. “It was a desperate measure, there was no other way to win, and it worked.”

“So did you make them auto-destruct or something?”

He tsks.

“That’s a dark-sider’s idea!” he chastises her. “No, they surrendered. They’re on our side now. I think, once we undo Palpatine’s conditioning, we can find a place for them in the Order. They could become troopers or technicians. For example. I haven’t thought about it in detail yet.”

“Oh!” Rey is shocked. She has a thousand questions –

“Can I tell you the rest tomorrow morning?” Ben asks. “I do want to tell you everything, it’s just… I’m really exhausted, Rey. I fainted on the bridge after it was done. I’m sorry.”

She slides her hand under his black top and examines his chest. There are no injuries. No trace of the hole she made with her saber, only a thin line of the post-surgery scar.

Ben puts his hand on top of hers and presses it to his heart.

“You healed me,” he says. “You saved me, Rey.”

“But you weren’t waking up –”

“They came to help me. Anakin, and Luke, and Yoda. In my sleep.”

“Master Yoda?! You saw master Yoda?”

“Twice today,” he admits sheepishly. “Because they also helped me with the battle. All the Jedi helped me, I think. I saw only three Force Ghosts, but I _felt _the presence of many.”

“I’m so jealous!” Rey exclaims. But the truth is she’s very happy to hear that. After Anakin and others helped her defeat Palpatine, she thought how unfair it was that nobody was there for Ben. Ben had to do everything alone: struggle with the voices in his head all his life alone, resist the Darkness alone, and fight the war alone.

“I wish I was there to help you too,” Rey adds as shame overwhelms her. Shame at how she let the Darkness control her, how she screamed at Luke’s Force Ghost when he tried to help her – in his own way – and shame at how Kylo had to knock her out in the end because she was so unreasonable.

“Stop that now, Rey,” Ben frowns. “You killed Palpatine. I won the battle. Each of us did our part. We have won, together. You were right from the very beginning. I needed you, we needed each other. It’s only thanks to you I am alive.”

Still, Rey thinks. In the last two days, she descended three times very deep into the Darkness, so deep that her eyes turned yellow. First in Palpatine’s throne room, then on the _Falcon_ with her friends, and on the _Finalizer_ during the battle. She falls to the Dark side too easily. Luke appeared to her on the _Finalizer_’s bridge to tell her that, just like he told her a long time ago on Ahch-To, and he was right. It starts to be dangerous.

She craved revenge. Those who made her suffer, would suffer in their turn. She also craved control, so that nobody could ever make her suffer again. The power she felt flowing through her veins, the power her anger and determination gave her, was not something she was willing to renounce. She felt intoxicated. It wasn’t a good feeling, not really, but it was so strong it could easily become addictive. And every time, it was motivated by pain – the fear of losing Ben, the despair as he was not waking up. Sinking the galaxy in blood and turmoil seemed the best way to cope with it.

She managed to destroy three enemy ships just using the Force, concentrating on their weak points, blowing them up from within. No quarter. No prisoners. Was she the next Supreme Leader of the First Order, she wondered, catching the viewport reflection of the yellow eyes burning in her face, and did Darth Sidious win in the end, from beyond the grave, turning her permanently to the Dark side?

The yellow eyes are gone now. These were likely the two most difficult days of her life. Things will get better now. Right?

But as she gazes at Ben, she understands why Anakin stayed on the Dark side after losing Padmé. She knows now how it feels.

“Rey,” Ben resumes slowly, “On balance, things aren’t good. We have won but the price of this victory is very high. Billions are dead, Coruscant is uninhabitable, the galaxy is in ruins –”

Rey wants to say they will rebuild it, but it’s not entirely true. Things can be rebuilt, but not everything can be fixed, and the dead cannot be resuscitated. Yes, she knows billions are dead and it’s a terrible tragedy, yet in this very moment, she just thinks of Leia and of the hole she left in both their hearts: the only mother figure Rey ever had, and Ben’s real mother. Leia and Ben had only started to make up for the lost time. Both Rey and Ben are orphans now. At present, when the dust starts to settle, Rey knows they’ll be both thinking about it more than they have allowed themselves to in the past two months.

Ben is staring into the distance, his arms firmly wrapped around her. Yes, they’re both alive, by miracle; the war is over, by another miracle; and yet it doesn’t seem fitting to celebrate.

“My Knights,” he utters, looking miserable. “We butchered them…”

“They were gone, Ben. They were not themselves anymore, Palpatine possessed them –”

“Yes, because I sent them to their death. To some base in the Unknown Regions that turned out to be a trap, a distraction. I will never know what exactly happened to them.”

His face clouds over and Rey strokes his cheek in silence. She revels in his proximity, his warmth, his touch. She wishes this could be a more joyful moment. But it cannot be.

“Palpatine has been toying with us for so long,” Ben says. “He was behind Snoke, and behind Vader’s mask that I worshipped. Playing a game. All this destruction out there, whole worlds ruined, some blown to pieces – it was just part of his game, too. Including the last order he gave his clones, to destroy the Core. Even after his death, he is still playing us.”

“Let’s go to sleep now,” Rey pleads softly, after a long silence, because she can’t think of anything better to say. Nothing good can come out of dissecting it all now.

He nods slowly but doesn’t move.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you,” he says. Rey freezes. What is it this time? What other secrets has he been keeping, apart from Vader’s shrine?

“Before Exegol, I dreamt that I would die in the confrontation with Palpatine. The dream came back several times, just like the other nightmares.”

“You should have told me.”

“How could I? What for?”

“I suspected something was wrong. You were distant. It wasn’t kind not to tell me about it.”

“You knew the risks anyway. You knew we could both die. Why would I add to your worries?”

“Did that dream change anything for you?” Rey asks, pulling away slightly and looking up at him.

He avoids her eyes.

“It might have,” he admits in the end. “I might have fought Palpatine more if I hadn’t had this dream.”

“But why?” Rey explodes. “I don’t understand. Why would you accept a stupid dream like that as your fate?”

“In that dream, I died but you lived. Maybe I thought that was the only way to save you.”

“So it was a sacrifice?” Rey raises her voice. “You decided to let go… for me? How could you? How was that better for me? You would have left me alone!”

“You would be alive.”

“I wanted to die next to you on the floor of that throne room!” Rey shouts, sitting back on her heels, away from him, and bats his arms furiously when he reaches for her. “You had no right to keep that dream to yourself and to decide for me!”

“It wasn’t like that, Rey,” he barks impatiently. “It wasn’t a conscious decision. I did fight him. But when I saw he had the upper hand, I guess… I accepted to go more easily, because I was persuaded you would be safe.”

“Well, I wasn’t! He attacked me too, and I had to fight him!”

“But you won. So maybe it was meant to be like that.”

“You wanted to leave me alone!” she repeats, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I thought we were together! I thought you cared about me!”

“I care about you!” he explodes. “My first preoccupation was always your safety! You have your whole life ahead of you, and if I had to give mine for you, I would!”

“_But I don’t want you to give your life for me_!” Rey yells. For a moment, she is afraid the Darkness is returning, because she is shaking with anger. “I want you to _be there_ for me, to have a life _with me_, not to die for my sake –”

“It’s not just about that!” Ben snaps. “You are the most important, but it’s more than that! You know as well as me that I didn’t deserve to survive this – that I don’t deserve to live!”

This, from a man she saved from dying, with whom she started to imagine a future – this hits Rey as if he punched her in the face. He did admit to her once he was giving up on himself and that’s why he wanted to face Palpatine alone. But that was a long time ago. Before everything happened between them. And even then, he never expressed it so brutally, so directly.

“What?” she manages.

“I fully expected to die at the end of it all,” Ben replies in an eerily calm way. “It would have been a fitting end for me.”

“A fitting end?” Rey repeats, incredulous. “How is death _a fitting end_? How is it a fitting end for someone who has just saved the galaxy, who has so much good in him that he would give his life for another person? How is leaving me alone a fitting end?”

“A fitting end for Kylo Ren. A fitting end for everything I’ve done.”

She screamed more or less the same thing at Poe and Finn when they were leaving Exegol in the _Falcon_. She accused them of wanting to see Ben conveniently dispatched. Better Kylo Ren as a dead hero than Kylo Ren alive and always a potential threat. Then she regretted that outburst, she thought she had been unfair to them, but it was too late. The words couldn’t be unsaid. Her friends left the _Finalizer_ as soon as the fleet dropped out of hyperspace above Coruscant, and she hasn’t heard from them since.

And now, Ben says the exact same thing – even after winning the final battle, _he still thinks he deserved to die_.

What did she expect, really? That he’d be happy to fly off into the sunset with her after the war? When the dust of the final battle settled and everyone looked at Kylo Ren, when he looked at himself, what did she think would happen?

They have both suffered terrible trauma. Rey knows healing from it will take time. Maybe they will never heal fully. What he’s saying now is also dictated by trauma, despair and fatigue. Plus, the end of the war is not really the end. The tough work of reconstruction, reconciliation, and building the post-war galactic order will only begin now. But she thought they’d be at least able to celebrate for one night. Celebrate being alive, destroying Palpatine, putting an end to senseless deaths, _literally saving the galaxy. _She thought they’d fall into each other’s arms, crying, that she will finally tell him she loves him, he will reply with the same, and they will make love all night.

Instead, they’re shouting at each other, and he tells her he should be dead. They’re exhausted, looking battered and dishevelled. She is sure she stinks; she took her last shower before Exegol. He smells strongly of bacta. It’s anticlimactic, to say the least. It’s nothing like the happy ends on holovids.

_She saved him. _Why can’t he just be happy about it? Did she really save him, then? He thanked her, but did he want to be saved? And is it even possible to save someone who believes he deserves to die?

Ben sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he utters wearily. “I don’t want to fight. I can’t… I can barely keep my eyes open.”

They shed their outer clothes and crawl under the duvet. He wraps his arms around her. Rey inhales his warm scent, mixed with bacta, and traces lines on his chest with her fingers, feeling for his heart and listening to his breathing. All she wanted a few hours ago was for him to wake up. She thought this would solve everything. She thought they could leave the past behind them, like he once said they should.

It was naïve of her. Only someone like her – someone with practically no past – could think that would be possible. After all, nothing remarkable had ever happened to her, either good or bad, until she found that droid in the desert.

For him, it’s a totally different story.

Rey searches for his hand under the duvet. It’s warm and made of uneven surfaces; some soft pads, some harder, calloused parts. As she trails her fingers across it, she remembers her horror at feeling the very same hand get colder and colder in Exegol’s throne room.

“Ben,” she whispers, and he opens slowly his bleary eyes.

“I’m sorry I screamed at you. You almost died, you just woke up after a surgery, you won the war, and I got upset and screamed at you. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“It’s ok,” he whispers back.

“I love you,” Rey says and presses her forehead to his. It’s not the best moment to say it, especially after she put it off for so long. But it comes from deep inside her and she cannot hold it back any longer.

There is a brief silence, then he nods.

“I know.”

“You do?” she asks, stupefied. Because this is not exactly the answer she expected or hoped for –

“I do. And do you know how?” he asks, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. “I know because I heard it the first time you said it.”

“You did?” Rey stutters. When she said those words to him, in the throne room on Exegol, he was already down. She had run him through with her saber.

“Yes. Some of my consciousness lingered… I felt the pain when you struck me down, and then I heard you. It meant everything to me. It made me hang on.”

And it means everything to her to learn this now. To learn he heard her say it, and that it helped him. To know that nothing was wasted or too late, nothing was pointless.

“I love you too,” Ben murmurs. “But you also knew that already, didn’t you? You are the most important person in the galaxy for me.”

She beams at him and it’s almost perfect, until he adds –

“I would die ten times over if it could help save you. At least my life would not be completely worthless.”

No, Ben, Rey almost says, your life is not worthless. Sacrifice is not the only way to make it meaningful, and it is not the only path to redemption. What you say is wrong. The way you think about it, about yourself, about us, is all wrong.

But he’s just said he loves her. They’ve said these important words to each other, and she doesn’t want to spoil it, nor wear him out any further. It’s just that she didn’t imagine their love confession would be like this – so tainted with pain.

The idealistic way she used to imagine that moment was also naïve. She knows it now. Theirs was never meant to be an easy love. How can Ben really love anyone, how can he build any life for himself, how can he find happiness and peace, if he is so filled with self-loathing?

She takes his head between her hands and presses her lips to his in a goodnight kiss. It’s a rather chaste kiss, only lips against lips. There’s too much emotion and too much fatigue for anything else. But when she pulls away, he is smiling. He looks so boyish when he does that it always takes her breath away.

He is asleep a few seconds later. Rey watches him for a long time, afraid to drift off to sleep herself, as if he could be snatched away from her at any moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While waiting for the conclusion of the trilogy, the most interesting question for me was: what will happen after the war? What will Kylo’s future be like and what will his and Rey’s relationship be? How will everyone cope with the trauma and build a new life for themselves? How will Kylo and everyone else deal with his past and crimes?
> 
> Well, we know how TROS solved that challenge. But here, in this story, we will make time for it. One important thing I realised after watching the movie is that I could have even accepted if Kylo and Rey were not together at the end (though I would have been very disappointed), if only he survived, faced his past, and then got a chance to build a life for himself...
> 
> So, how did you like today's chapter? "I love you." "I know." :-) Happy New Year and a big thank you to all my readers and commenters. Every little word and every line from you makes me happy.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mythical threshold of 500 kudos reached and passed! Did I expect that when I started posting this story a few months ago? Not for a second. My most humble thanks and love to you, dear readers and commenters.

She jolts awake screaming.

This time, she died in the confrontation with Palpatine. As she was lying dead on the ground in the Sith fortress on Exegol, Ben appeared – she hardly knows from where, but she wasn’t surprised to see him – and revived her. He put his hand on her bosom and transferred his life force to her. She watched it all from inside her body, knowing fully well she was dead. And then suddenly she wasn’t. She was in his arms, alive again.

“Ben!” she exclaimed, overjoyed, and kissed him. She pulled away, holding his face in her hands, while he wrapped his arms around her and smiled. Such a cheerful, lovely smile. He looked happy and gazed at her as if she were a wonder.

Then suddenly he closed his eyes and fell back onto the ground. She leaned down to him, alarmed, but it was too late.

He was gone. A black sweatshirt was all that was left.

“No!” Rey cries out as she opens her eyes. She’s sweating profusely, her heart drumming in her chest. The horror. The cruelty of it. That he should be snatched from her in such a way, that something like this could happen, even in a nightmare –

She turns to his side of the bed and he isn’t there.

For a few seconds, she cannot breathe.

Is it true then? Was that what really transpired? Did she only dream of killing Palpatine and of Ben winning the battle, all the Jedi coming to help them, Finn and Poe coming to pick them up in the _Falcon_? Did she dream a wishful ending, while in reality he died on Exegol, becoming one with the Force, his body disappearing – not even a body to bury and mourn – and she was here alone, in her quarters on the _Finalizer_?

For a moment, Rey doesn’t know. For a moment, she can’t tell nightmare from reality.

The door to the bedroom flies open and Ben bursts in.

“What’s going on?” he asks, breathless. “I heard you scream –”

She is so relieved she is about to be sick on the bedsheets. As he sits on the edge of the bed, Rey throws her arms around him, sobbing.

These dreams return every night, each time a different version of what could have been. Tormenting her, tearing her apart, taking away the remnants of her fragile peace of mind. Reminding her that they both survived only by a lucky turn of events. Reminding her of the infinite possibilities that didn’t come to pass, or perhaps they did come to pass in alternate universes, which may well exist, for all she knows.

Rey hurts with every fibre of her being.

“It’s just another bad dream,” Ben murmurs, rocking her in his arms. “The doctor said they would go away with time.”

When Rey told him about the dreams three days ago, wondering if Palpatine could still influence them from beyond his grave, Ben said no.

“Not all nightmares are sent by evil Siths, Rey. Some are just created by our own minds.”

So she went to the med bay and the _Finalizer_’s psychiatrist told her they were both suffering from a post-traumatic stress disorder. The psychiatrist gave her sleeping pills, which Rey doesn’t want to take. But Ben takes them, or else, he says, he cannot sleep at all.

When he does decide to go to sleep, that is.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Rey speaks as she relaxes slowly in his embrace. He is holding her in silence. “Why are you not in bed?”

“I was still working. Reading these reports takes forever, and during the day I don’t have enough time, what with all the meetings.”

Reports of destruction from the attacked worlds. Detailing the needs for rescue and relief, for reconstruction; estimating the costs, the time and the resources necessary. They discuss them with their allies and take decisions. The work needs to be organised. And then, there’s the question of the post-war galactic order. The new government. Council or Senate? Something else? Rebuilding has the priority for the time being, but they do need to create new structures to protect the galaxy from more wars and disorder in the future.

Rey is fed up with all this.

It’s not that she doesn’t care or thinks it’s unimportant. Billions are dead, billions of others homeless and deprived of any means of living. Everybody mourns somebody. Everybody is traumatised. The initial euphoria at the news that the enemy surrendered, and the enthusiastic media reporting on the Exegol events and on what happened in the Core – including the key role of the two Force users – quickly gave way to a more sober tone as the reality of the scale of destruction hit home. It’s been one week now since the battle of Coruscant and the holonet talks of nothing else. The images are apocalyptic; the holes from orbital strikes on many Core Worlds, the burnt surface of Coruscant where not one building is left standing, the wrecks of capital ships, cruisers, and starfighters floating in space, and the hundreds of frozen bodies around them.

And this was just the last battle. There’s also the destruction wrought by Palpatine’s fleet’s random attacks all over the galaxy in the past months. Not to mention Espirion, whose debris, like that of the Hosnian system, will remain in the interstellar space forever to serve as a reminder.

Rey mourns the dead. She worries about the fate of survivors. But she just cannot sit in those meetings anymore. She can’t look at the reports. Perhaps she estimates she has done her part of the job – the part she knows, the part she is good at – and now it’s other people’s turn. There’s a little of that, even if, on the other hand, she wants to play some role in the reconstruction. She certainly understands Ben needs to be leading the effort as the Supreme Leader of the First Order and currently the most powerful player in the galaxy.

But she feels they need time to breathe, to rebuild themselves. They’re both still very much reeling from the shock.

“You look like death. You barely had the time to recover from your injury and surgery.”

“I am tired,” he admits. “But I cannot stop now. You know well I cannot.”

“There are other people in the Order who can take the relay for some time. People you trust –”

“It’s not that, Rey.”

Yeah, she knows it’s not that. He won’t waste any time mourning and processing his own trauma. He doesn’t feel entitled to it. He will devote all his energy and resources to the reconstruction effort. He atones for his past by helping rebuild the galaxy.

“You are killing yourself with work.”

“It’s not that bad. I was coming to bed. I was just finishing one last thing.”

“We haven’t even talked properly about everything that happened,” Rey insists. “There’s never any time. And I keep dreaming that one of us dies. Both of us being alive, and all this being over, is a gift. There were so many endings possible, yet we got this one. We could at least appreciate that for a moment.”

“_You_ can,” he retorts somewhat bitterly. “You are a hero. But I –”

“You are a hero too!”

“And a criminal that was lucky to survive. The least I can do is try to make amends now.”

“By all means, make amends! But not like that!”

“I feel better when I work.”

“Do you really feel better or are you just trying to numb your guilt?”

“Can you blame me? Guilt is a terrible feeling,” he says, rubbing his face wearily. “If I can avoid it for a moment, don’t begrudge me for it.”

_Leia died, Espirion exploded, unspeakable violence happened all over the galaxy, I lost myself in Darkness three times, you almost died by my hand, Palpatine almost killed us both, and yet we’re not crying over it together. We sit in meetings. You take pills to sleep. I live horrid alternate realities in my dreams, night by night, to the point of not knowing what reality is. It’s all wrong._

“It feels wrong to you, maybe,” he replies aloud to what she sends him through the bond because she’s afraid her voice will fail her. “We are different. If I talk about it, if I give myself time to think about it all, I will shatter.”

Yes, they are different. Rey needs space to reflect upon the recent events, while he prefers to busy himself with something else. She also wants to think of the future, to start hoping again, to look forward to better times, whereas he immerses himself in the present, as if he was afraid to look beyond the immediate.

Because he _is _afraid.

There are other differences too. She longs for physical intimacy. She waited for two days as he was recovering from his surgery. On the third evening, when he came to bed, she slid her hands under his top, kissed his neck up to his jaw, squirming against him. But he – no, he didn’t reject her, nothing as harsh as that. He put his arms around her, kissed her, caressed her hair, and then _gently stopped her_ when she tried to move her hand lower, under the waistband of his sleeping pants.

“Rey,” he said, and she waited, pained. “I’m not sure it’s –”

“You’re not in the mood,” she stated sadly.

“I’m not in the mood for anything, really,” he admitted. “I’m sorry. Let’s wait a few days.”

Four more days have passed and he still hasn’t initiated anything. There aren’t many opportunities anyway because she goes to bed alone every night, while he stays up working. By now, Rey could fuck his brains out, which would definitely cheer them both up. She lies next to this man with a gorgeous body every night, and then she gets herself off in the shower. She is more frustrated than when she lived alone on Jakku.

Ben’s feeling of guilt is nothing new. Rey knows it started right after he killed his father. Guilt and doubt led him to question Snoke and to eventually kill him, then to trace a different path for the Order as the Supreme Leader. His guilt got even stronger after he killed Hux, immersing himself deeply in the Darkness for the first time. He killed and enjoyed it. It terrified him.

And now that the war is over and the real villain is slain, after Ben fought on the side of the Light and all the Jedi came to fight by his side, now that he’s reached as much balance between the Light and the Darkness as he possibly can, he probably feels even more wretched when he thinks back to what he has done over the years.

Guilt can be a very powerful sensation. It’s pain, essentially, and if you want to be free of your pain, you turn to the Dark side. Rey knows it from her own experience. Darkness helps cope with suffering. As he’s detoxicating from the Darkness, the realization of his past deeds can eventually become so unbearable it might drag him back under. She can already see the signs – his obsessive single-mindedness, his exaggerated focus on his work, his neglect of anything else than what he now imagines as his sole purpose, that is to say making amends. He acted with similar blind persistence when he was under Snoke, even if his purpose was different then.

After a long silence, Ben laughs uncomfortably.

“Can’t you see, Rey?” he asks. “All this disaster, all the deaths and destruction, this plays to my advantage. The galaxy needed me to get rid of a villain that turned out to be worse than me, and now it needs me again, to rebuild. Otherwise, everyone would still be asking for my head on a plate. There would be people and governments demanding to put me on trial for war crimes. But now everyone has bigger problems.”

He keeps saying, in many different ways, that he deserved to die, and she keeps getting upset when he does it. It won’t do. Maybe they should just talk about it rationally for once.

“So, let’s imagine there is a trial,” Rey says. “Say there is an authority, a galactic tribunal or whatever, that has the power to try you and the rest of the First Order’s High Command. What would happen?”

“They would convict and execute me, obviously.”

“I seriously doubt that. You killed Snoke, you almost died fighting Palpatine, you won the final battle. You eliminated, with my help, the biggest threats to the galaxy. Palpatine was in your head all your life, manipulating you, because he craved your power. Your uncle tried to kill you in your sleep before you did anything wrong. Wouldn’t all that be taken into account? Wouldn’t that be extenuating circumstances?”

“Just because I am a Force user who hears voices in his head, I am not above the law. It cannot justify everything I’ve done.”

“Some time ago, Force users were judged by the Jedi Council, not by ordinary courts,” Rey reminds him. “I don’t think that was because they were above the law. Only the Jedi could understand the constraints and difficulties under which other Force users operated.”

“There’s no Jedi Council anymore.”

“You and I are the Jedi Council now! At least as close to it as can be. If you were put on trial, my testimonial would be crucial.”

“I see you’ve read some books,” Ben laughs, stretching himself lazily next to her on the bed. “All right, so perhaps they wouldn’t execute me. But I would at least be exiled to some obscure Outer Rim world. I would become an outcast, a nobody, made to wear Force dampeners for the rest of my life. Instead, I continue to be the Supreme Leader of the First Order. I get to sit at the table where the future of the galaxy is being decided.”

“Well then, if you believe exile is what you deserve, nothing stops you from exiling yourself, Ben. Give up your position and privileges, and leave. Build a cabin in the woods on Ajan Kloss. Or better still, there is one free AT-AT walker on Jakku you could move into. What stops you?”

She has managed to make him smile. That’s something.

“It doesn’t scare me, if this is what you imply,” he says.

“Yet you’re not doing it. Why?”

It wouldn’t be so bad, she thinks and quickly chastises herself for being so selfish. They could leave all this behind. They could live in a cottage somewhere on a green world, grow their own food, love each other. Leave the galactic government, the reconstruction, the strategy, the policing of the galaxy to other people.

“Because,” he barks, “if it was self-imposed, it wouldn’t really be exile – it would be a holiday!”

“Nothing wrong with a holiday,” Rey cannot help herself. “We have deserved it!”

He sighs, as if he wanted to remind her to stay serious.

“If I cannot play any role in what happens now, if I can’t help in any way because I’m in exile, what’s the point of my being alive at all?” he asks. “And who will continue the transformation of the First Order if I’m gone? It could become a peacekeeping force and a technology and innovation hub, delivering for the whole galaxy. It needs to develop into something else than a purely military organization. Who will see to it if I’m gone? All my top commanders are soldiers. I don’t have any civilian advisers.”

“So there you go. You have your answer. The galaxy won’t be any better off with you dead or in exile. Isn’t that enough for you?”

He shakes his head.

“That’s what you and I think, but not everyone thinks that.”

“Do you really care so much about what the others think?” Rey inquires, folding her legs under herself and shifting on the bed so as to get closer to him. “Or you simply cannot forgive yourself, even if the others are willing to close their eyes to your past? Is it atonement you seek, or is it punishment?”

“Maybe it’s both,” he admits. “And there is no way to have both. It’s always one or the other.”

“You will eventually have to forgive yourself, Ben. There’s just no other way to live.”

He nods.

“Master Yoda said something similar.”

“I think justice is also about knowing when to show mercy, if a person regrets and makes amends,” Rey says, quite proud of herself for coming up with ideas as wise as those of master Yoda. “Justice is also weighing benefits against costs, isn’t it? All the lives you have saved by winning that battle, by ending the fighting – and you even spared the enemy – that’s surely more lives than you have ever taken?”

“It doesn’t work that way, Rey.”

But it does, she wants to protest. She’s not a lawyer, so perhaps he’s right, maybe justice systems don’t work that way – juxtaposing the number of victims and that of saved souls – but surely this is what justice should be at its core? Alive, he can do more good than dead. It’s as simple as that. Where would the galaxy be now if he was dead? Under Snoke, under Hux, under Palpatine?

She wants it to be true. She needs to believe it.

“Shortly after Pasaana, before you arrived here,” Ben says slowly, sitting up and leaning against the pillows, “one of the troopers received the file with information on his origins and learnt that he was from the village of Tuanul on Jakku.”

He pauses and Rey feels her heartbeat accelerate. She knows about Tuanul. Poe told her. It was one of Poe’s favourite stories, before Pasaana and the peace negotiations, to prove to everyone Kylo Ren was a monster.

“One year earlier, the same man was part of the squadron that travelled with me to Tuanul when I searched for the map to Luke. I killed Lor San Tekka then and ordered the troopers to exterminate everyone in the village.”

She knows already how this story ends but doesn’t stop him. It looks like he needs to say it.

“So after reading his file, that stormtrooper realized he had likely killed some of his own relatives in the Tuanul operation,” Kylo continues.

There is a long silence. Rey wants to say something so badly – but there is nothing, nothing that comes to her mind that could console him.

“And he killed himself,” Kylo says.

Oh.

She didn’t expect that.

This is truly heart-breaking. And not just that; it is unpardonable. At least this is what he is implying.

“Terrible, isn’t it?” Ben asks. “And this is not the distant past when I was a different person, hearing voices in my head. This man committed a suicide recently, and it’s my fault. The past doesn’t die, you can’t kill it, contrary to what I once thought. It always comes back for us. It will come back for me time and time again.”

He stares at the wall behind her while Rey searches for his eyes in vain. She takes his hand but he doesn’t react. It stays limp in her palm.

“I’d prefer if he came after me,” Ben resumes. “He was still posted on the _Finalizer_. He could have tried to get to me. Shoot me with a blaster for what I made him do. I would have killed him, of course, without knowing his story. I would have only found out later. So he would be dead anyway now, but somehow it would have been less terrible than a suicide. Yet he didn’t even try. And I cannot stand it!”

He raises his voice and then gets silent abruptly, running his hand through his hair.

“I’m a disgrace,” he says. “That anyone is willing to close their eyes to all this and even talk to me, let alone invite me to the table to discuss the future of the galaxy – make no mistake, Rey, this is just because they have no choice. They need the First Order. And they think I would fight them to get a seat at that table anyway. They’re still afraid of me. There’s nothing else to it. Everyone knows what I am even if they smile and bow to my face.”

He sighs.

“So sometimes I’m not even sure if it’s really better for me to stay and help,” he admits wearily. “Perhaps, after all, I’m not so essential to the good of the galaxy.”

There is not much to say after that. When they turn off the lights and try to get some sleep, Rey snuggles in against his chest, and he lets her. He presses his mouth to her forehead.

But now she knows it won’t be quick and simple. Since nobody will make him face the consequences of what he has done, he needs to learn how to make peace with his past on his own, to forgive himself and move on. It won’t happen magically after one conversation. She can hardly help him with that, it’s not up to her to fix it. And she cannot just sit here and wait.

Because now that the war is over, she also needs to find out what life has in stock for her and where her destiny lies.

* * *

The next morning, when she enters her sitting room after the shower, she expects to see Kylo at the table, sipping his caf and reading a report on his datapad, as every morning. He got up before her, so he must already be working.

But instead she finds him standing in front of the viewport, idle, visibly waiting for her.

She touches his elbow gently.

“Breakfast?” she suggests.

“I’ve just ordered it.”

“What’s the agenda for today?” she asks lightly, although it looks like it won’t be an ordinary day. “Any meetings this morning?”

“I want to speak to you first, Rey,” Ben says, turning to her and giving her a serious look. “We have talked a lot about me… but not about you.”

She is silent, aware that he must have seen through her. It’s unfortunate because she certainly didn’t want him to find out this way.

He studies her face for a moment, then looks away.

“You are going to leave, aren’t you?” he asks.

“It’s not like that, Ben.”

“So how is it?” he insists, without anger. He sounds very calm, even resigned. “Tell me.”

Rey hardly knows yet how to answer that. She thought of it for a few days, even if only vaguely. It’s only last night that it started to crystallise in her mind.

“You think it’s because of you,” she says. “It’s not.”

“No? I know I have neglected you, I haven’t been attentive enough, we haven’t made love –”

“It’s not that,” Rey repeats. Because it’s not. Perhaps it has contributed, but it has also made her decision more difficult, because she knew he would take it personally.

He nods slowly.

“You have your own life to figure out,” he states.

“I want to think of the future, Ben. I never had any opportunity to do it. I was on Jakku, then I was with the Resistance, fighting you, and then with you, fighting Palpatine. All this is done now, and I don’t know what the rest of my life should look like. I want to build something now. Something that I choose, not something I’m just thrown into. And I have no idea yet what it could be.”

“I understand that,” he says quietly. “But I thought it could be with me. Not away from me. You did _choose_ to be with me.”

“You’re right. And nothing has changed. I am still assuming it will be with you. But I need my own thing too, Ben. You have the Order, and the galactic Alliance, and the Council. I have participated in all this, but I’m no politician. I can help, but I need to know what _my_ purpose is… what my dreams are.”

He nods again.

“Do you have any concrete plans?”

“Not yet. I had this idea of a Jedi school… of gathering Force-sensitive people and studying the Force together. But I don’t even know how to go about it. I need to take some time and think about what I want. And I don’t think I can do it here.”

“Here as in with me?”

“Here as in on the _Finalizer_.”

His eyes dart to her; he doesn’t understand.

“I’ve been at home here,” Rey says, “But Ben, I don’t want to live my whole life on a starship. Do you? Do you not want to have a real home?”

“I do,” he replies hesitatingly. “I don’t want to live in space all the time, either. That was Snoke’s way. But I haven’t lived planet-side for very long, and I wouldn’t really know where to go. Also, the First Order needs a seat, the headquarters. It’s not just about a home for me. And it’s not a good time to move.”

“It wasn’t a good time to move when the war was on. The war is over now.”

“You know very well how much work there is to be done. I have no time to plan a removal.”

“Ben, you need to think about your life too, not just about the work,” Rey raises her voice, then lowers it again because it’s very important that they don’t do this in anger. They are not splitting up. She is not leaving him. “You’ve already saved the galaxy. Having a home is an important thing. A first step to having a life.”

It could be a home with her, but she is too proud to say it. She wants a home with him only if it’s equally important to him, not as an afterthought. A home, a real home, is something they _deserve_. She refuses to wait with this until everyone decides how many members should sit on the galactic Council.

Perhaps it all seems more urgent to her because she has always had so little?

“Your purpose might be all clear to you, but mine isn’t to me. You know who you are, and I don’t. To think of it, I don’t even have a last name. Everyone has one, and I’m just Rey.”

Ben huffs impatiently.

“A surname is just a symbolic thing, Rey. It doesn’t carry that much meaning for a person as an individual. It’s about the family.”

“So maybe it’s so important to me because I don’t have any family,” Rey says. “As if I didn’t have a real identity. _As if I wasn’t a real person_.”

She used to talk about it to Finn, who understood because it was the same for him. But it’s not anymore. Finn has found his family and now he has a real name.

Kylo looks at her with a strange face expression and suddenly Rey feels uneasy under his gaze.

“If it is so important to you,” he says slowly, “I could… you could take mine. You can even pick. I have so many names. Solo, Ren, Organa, Skywalker, Naberrie…”

She smiles and waves her hand dismissingly.

“Don’t joke about it. It doesn’t work like that, I can’t just pick any name, someone else’s name…”

“Actually, it can work exactly like that –” he starts, with a strain to his voice, but she cuts him off.

“The point is that I want to _build _an identity for myself. For example, what do I want to do in relation to the Force? Am I a Jedi? Am I something else?”

She unclips her saber from her belt and nudges him to take it.

“I want to make my own lightsaber,” Rey says. “And you should keep this one. It’s your grandfather’s crystal. I changed the other parts when I repaired it, but it’s still your family legacy.”

He remains motionless for a few seconds before finally accepting the hilt from her hand.

“Actually, I was also thinking that I should perhaps build a new one for myself,” he remarks.

“What about your crossguard?”

Ben shrugs.

“I’m not sure. I’m attached to it… but it’s a reminder of the past I’m not proud of. Perhaps I will keep it, but will use my grandfather’s if you really want to give it to me.”

Rey nods.

“I want to leave you something else, too. The _Falcon_.”

“No need,” he says sharply, but Rey is determined to insist. They were only able to escape Exegol thanks to the _Falcon_. She told him the whole story in the past days. In the end, her friends left her the ship and returned to the Naboo fleet on a borrowed First Order vessel. At that time, she thought she was keeping the _Falcon_ for herself. Now it seems clear to her that Ben should have it. It’s his father’s ship. Han would have liked that.

“I can’t even look at it. It’s too painful.”

“Well, that ship saved your ass on Exegol. But I will need another one. Will you lend me one?”

He snorts.

“Will I lend you one?” he repeats. “Pick a ship you want, Rey. Or ten. You may leave me but I won’t let you leave with nothing.”

“_I’m not leaving you_. I want you to understand that. I want you to understand _why_ I need to leave.”

“I do understand,” Ben replies, staring at the viewport again. “Even though I have a feeling I will never see you again.”

“Nonsense. Don’t be dramatic.”

“I always knew it was not permanent. You came here to train with me, something started between us, but you hadn’t wanted to join me when I offered it on the _Supremacy_, so I didn’t expect you to stay now, either. I know this is not the life you want, even if the Order has changed a lot.”

“This could be a _part_ of my life,” Rey says. He gazes at her with a sad longing in his eyes, which reminds her of the face expression he wore in the _Supremacy_’s lift. He looked at her then as if she was something he wanted more than anything but knew he could never have.

“But it can’t be my whole life. And it shouldn’t be yours, either. You too need to start thinking of your future.”

“I don’t know how,” he says. “I have no clue.”

“Me neither. But we have to try.”

They’re both at the crossroads. Their duty is done; the path that was traced for them has come to an end. What now? Each of them has to figure out what to do next. It’s scary. Rey feels completely unanchored. A free electron floating in space, without a purpose, without a destination, without an identity. She needs to forge one for herself just like she needs to forge her own lightsaber. No more borrowed weapons, no more predetermined journeys.

The Force brought them together, making them enemies first, then allies, friends, and lovers. But they need to find each other beyond the Force too. They need to look at each other and really see the person the other is. For that, however, each of them needs to know first who they are themselves.

“Look after yourself when I’m gone,” Rey says. “Promise me you will eat and sleep properly, you won’t be exhausting yourself with training, you won’t be working late into the night.”

He looks very sad but smiles.

“I will try.”

“Promise me you will love yourself a little bit more,” she pushes her luck.

He shakes his head somewhat helplessly.

“I don’t know how,” he repeats.

Rey wishes everything was easier. Grieving, talking about it, forgiving, forgetting, saying goodbye. Knowing what’s next.

He is silent for a long moment before he utters slowly:

“If you must leave, go today.”

“Please, Ben,” Rey says. “It’s not forever. Don’t be like that.”

“Please go today, Rey,” he repeats, more softly, but his jaw is set. She stands on her tiptoes, puts her arms around his neck and kisses him.

When she pulls away, his eyes are lowered and his face is wet.

* * *

He truly is the biggest loser in the galaxy.

When he asks a woman to marry him, she doesn’t even turn him down. No: she simply doesn’t understand what he is asking because he can’t even express himself clearly.

In fact, this is the second time he has asked her to marry him, because what else was that plea to join him in the _Supremacy_’s throne room, the offering of his hand, if not a marriage proposal? Back then, she ran away; now, she didn’t even pay any attention. She cut him off before he had a chance to clarify.

Because the idea of marrying him must be so ludicrous it never even crossed her mind. He hadn’t planned to suggest it. But when she said she wanted to have a surname, it suddenly occurred to him –

Or did she realize what he was asking and only pretended she didn’t, to let him off gently?

No. He would have felt it in the bond. Wouldn’t he?

Kylo stands in the hangar bay, dressed in all his Supreme Leader regalia except for the mask, ready for another meeting that starts in ten minutes. He looks at the empty spot where the ship she took had been parked, and shakes his head in dismay.

But why is he so mortified? What did he expect? It was a temporary arrangement. Allies with benefits. Perhaps more than that; after all, she said she loved him, but not enough to stay. Love is never enough, his parents’ marriage taught him that. It was not enough to make Rey forget their differences, and certainly not enough to marry him.

He understands she needs to discover her purpose in life. But she left so soon after the war ended. A week only passed, and she was already itching to leave. She will never be back.

He respected her wishes, so much that he didn’t beg her to stay. He didn’t tell her he would miss her desperately, because he didn’t want her to feel guilty. He even asked her to leave as soon as possible. Maybe she was just testing him? Checking his reaction? Waiting for a warmer, more emotional response? And he ruined it?

He has no idea. Even if they are practically in each other’s heads for most of the time, he has no idea. He just doesn’t know how to do this.

He can’t hold onto her as if she were his lifeboat. He also needs to find his own path after the war, independent of her, and it terrifies him. For a long time, war and the Order were the only things he knew. He still has the Order. It’s his comfort zone. Venture beyond it? Find a home? Have a life? Build a future? He wouldn’t know where to start.

Well, he would: forgiving himself, as she said, is the first step. And it’s also the one and only thing he can never do. So…

So he anchors himself in the present, finds himself work to do, new tasks to accomplish. A lifetime can be spent like this. If the present ceased to carry him, he would find himself adrift.

It’s a vicious circle and he knows he needs to break it or he will lose Rey. Which will serve him right, because he never deserved her in the first place. She was always bound to leave at one point. She saved his life. He can’t ask any more of her.

The _Falcon_ is parked in the same hangar bay. Kylo is staring at it from far away. He hasn’t been on that ship for ages, except a week ago, on the way from Exegol, but he was unconscious then.

The old piece of junk can stay here. He never needs to go on board.

His eyes are tingling and he wipes them hastily with his sleeve. The ship looks old and battered, but it’s still the same ship he adored as a child. The ship on which he learnt how to fly.

His father taught him.

* * *

He doesn’t really know why he walks up the ramp. Why he doesn’t turn back, why he keeps walking along the corridors, touching the walls, at first avoiding the cockpit. When he finally reaches the cockpit, his heart beats so hard he can hear it in his head.

No leather jacket, no untidy stash of papers, food rations, or metal objects lying around. There always used to be wrenches and other tools here because something was always breaking down. Now the cockpit is clean, without any trace of anyone’s presence.

Rey told him Chewie had hung his drawing on the wall next to the pilot’s seat. Well, Chewie must have taken it when he was leaving the _Falcon_ to Rey because the wall is bare now.

Kylo made the drawing on Pasaana. It depicted him as a little boy with shiny eyes, looking at his father, the hero, the coolest guy in the galaxy, and Chewie, the uncle he had always known. The three of them here, in this cockpit. That boy was not unhappy. Not yet. At the age he was in that drawing, there were already some difficult moments, some disappointments, but also happy times.

He looks away and catches the reflection of his own face in the transparisteel surface of the viewport.

“What did you do?” he asks the man who stares back at him. “Why? Why did you do that?”

There is a ghost of a touch, a fleeting sensation. Something like a hand on his shoulder, a caress on his cheek.

He whirls around. But there’s nobody here with him. It’s an illusion.

Or a memory?

There is no return from what he did. No forgiveness. No tribunal will now sentence him to death after he won the war, and it’s in nobody’s interest to exile him, but for the first time in his life, Kylo truly understands the value of punishment. Perhaps accepting and undergoing punishment would be the only way for him to regain a measure of peace.

It’s just that nobody is demanding to punish him.

He brings his face closer to the reflective surface of the viewport.

“I hate you,” he spits at himself.

* * *

The words are so full of venom he actually takes a step back, shocked. The cold eyes burning in his face are those of Kylo Ren, a monster who wants to be free of this pain.

But he is not that person anymore, the person who ran Han Solo through with his lightsaber and watched him fall off the catwalk. He hasn’t been that person for a long time.

And what he has said is not true. He doesn’t – he doesn’t hate himself. Not anymore. In the last months, he often looked at himself differently. With Rey’s eyes. He felt like a different man, a better man, because there was something in him that made her look at him like that.

She liked his sense of humour. His intensity. She liked his body, his eyes, his hair. She definitely liked making love to him. He did his best to be a good lover to her. She kissed him hungrily, she touched him affectionately. She made him realize his body was made for something else than fighting.

She smiled to him. Talked to him. Looked after him. Trusted him.

She insisted on helping him, even when he rejected her.

_She saved his life._

She cared so much about him she was ready to die next to him. She went dark when he was not waking up. She woke up every night in the last week crying, dreaming he was gone. He didn’t even properly thank her for saving him. Not enough. He kept saying he should have died.

He didn’t make love to her for two weeks. He asked her to marry him on an impulse, in such a stupid, awkward way she didn’t even understand.

He let her go. He didn’t try to fix it. He didn’t try to meet her in the middle, to make a plan together, to find a way to give her what she wanted.

Love yourself a little more, she said before she left. She is the first person in a long time who has loved him. The first woman ever – apart from his mother – who has told him she loves him. She had to say it first, because he wasn’t even able to say these words to her.

The first person in a long time that has made him feel he is not alone, the first person ever who has truly understood him.

“Rey,” he whispers, clenching his fists in an old gesture of helplessness, which usually turns into anger. Not this time. But the bond is silent; she might be asleep on her ship, which is now taking her further and further away from him, on a new adventure. Or she may have closed herself off from the bond.

He is alone again, on his father’s old ship, which was Rey’s for more than a year, until today. He killed his father and let Rey go, and he is alone now.

His comlink buzzes and Croos’ voice brings him back to reality.

“Everyone is in the holoconference room, sir. Should we postpone the meeting?”

“No need,” Kylo says. “I am coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's sad. But this is the way.
> 
> Rationally, without absolving him of any blame or sentimentalising him, killing Ben Solo was not the only way to redeem him. It’s just that the other ways were less straightforward, less immediate, and therefore more risky vis-a-vis certain parts of the fandom, and they would have taken more screen time. It’s a matter of priorities. But it could have been done if anyone cared enough. I do.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone who shared their thoughts on the last chapter. I was happy to see that you appreciated how I tried to make Ben and Rey’s journey realistic, in terms of feelings and pace, rather than hurry it to a HEA the moment the war ended. I know it was sad… but hey, it’s not the end. See below!
> 
> Also, I am sorry for always adding one chapter to the total count. It’s all plotted, it’s just that when I put things to paper and flesh them out, sometimes they come out longer that initially foreseen. Plus, it’s only when I actually write a new chapter that I discover where it would be best to break off, for the sake of good pacing and cliffhangers :-)
> 
> Happy reading.

** _One month later_ **

“I think they’re ready,” Rey smiles to Saar-Yen-Dii, who is clutching the hilt of her new lightsaber. “Time to try?”

The girl’s eyes shine as she nods.

“You go first or I go first?” Rey asks. It’s such a happy moment she feels like stretching it a little bit more. They’ve both been working on their new sabers for a few days, staying in one of Christophsis’ crystal caves during daytime and returning to their ship for the night.

“You first,” the Cerean suggests.

It’s time. Rey picks up her new saber and presses the ignition button.

A golden yellow blade, a perfect blend of green and red, the Light and the Darkness in her soul, comes to life. It is beautiful, with the hilt Rey has crafted from her old staff. It’s hers. Finally. Not a legacy of the past, not an object with its own history and made by someone else. It is a part of her, attuned to her and to the way she understands and uses the Force. From now on, it is an extension of her body and mind, and of her Force awareness. That crystal sang to her, she found it after weeks of fruitless search, because it’s not easy to come across kyber crystals anymore.

Rey suspected her blade wouldn’t be just blue or green. She hoped for something that would reflect the Force duality in her spirit.

She would love Ben to be here to see it.

She turns to Saar-Yen-Dii, who watches Rey’s new weapon in silent fascination.

“Your turn.”

The girl stands up, extends her hand with the hilt and presses the ignition button. It’s an even more special moment for her, Rey thinks; the first time ever she will wield a lightsaber. So young, and she built it herself.

Saar-Yen-Dii’s blade is the colour of flame.

“There haven’t been many orange lightsabers in history, have there?” she asks hopefully.

“Not really. It’s very original, and it suits you. The blade colour will always match the nature of the owner. It’s your nature in the Force that you’re looking at.”

Saar-Yen-Dii, trained by Kylo Ren, is these days using both the Light and the Dark side more freely. Very emotional under her shy and reserved demeanour, slightly on edge, she will likely always be more sensitive to the appeal of the Darkness. She is a bit like what Ben must have been as a teenager.

They’ve been on Christophsis for two weeks. They tried Jedha earlier, without success. Even here, there aren’t many crystals left, and they had to ask for permission from the authorities. They spent the last few days meditating with their crystals in order to forge the connection, and they crafted the hilts and the inner mechanisms painstakingly.

In all this time, Rey hasn’t had much contact with Ben. When they said goodbye one month ago, they agreed they should take some time to themselves and not be in touch very often. The bond lies comfortably dormant at the back of her mind; sometimes she sends him an emotion via their connection and receives a little something in return, but they haven’t appeared to each other, and Rey doesn’t want to force it. They don’t even need to rely on the bond – they could simply use their comlinks, but she feels they should keep distance for now. A few times she did send him short written messages, telling him where they were, and he always responded kindly, if briefly, wishing them luck.

It can’t be easy for him. He is alone in a difficult political context, without any close friends. This is why, when she was leaving, she didn’t want to ask him if she could take his student with her. But he suggested it himself. He admitted he had had less and less time to train Saar-Yen-Dii, and it wouldn’t hurt if she travelled a bit. Not to mention that she also needed her own lightsaber. And Rey wouldn’t be alone.

So she took the girl and now here they are, a month later, on this crystalline planet, both of them newly kitted out with their own Jedi weapons.

“What now, master Rey?” Saar-Yen-Dii asks hopefully. It’s so rare that this quiet girl gets so happy. Rey loves to see it. Her dream of a Jedi academy, or a Jedi centre, is blossoming.

“I’m taking you to a nice green place to have some rest. I’ll be meeting with my friends there, and there is a very special hotel on that world that I want to stay in. I have a lot of memories from there.”

“Memories of master Ren?” Saar-Yen-Dii prompts with a smile.

“Actually, yes,” Rey replies. “He and I met on that world.”

* * *

Only now, on the way to Takodana, as they’re about to be back to civilization after their quest for kyber crystals, does Rey fully realize how much time has passed. A month is not a long time, but in the brief history of her and Ben’s relationship it’s a lot. She doesn’t know what he’s doing; he always replies to her messages saying everything is ok. She hasn’t looked at the holonet since she left the _Finalizer_, by choice, and she has no idea how the political negotiation and the reconstruction work is going.

This is what she wanted: to be away from it all and to do her own thing. But after a month of radio silence, she also feels slightly guilty about abandoning Ben in the middle of a big mess. Perhaps she should have insisted on talking through everything that had happened and do a part of the healing together? It looks a bit like she ran away, and she did promise him, on Pasaana, that there would be no more running away.

One thing she definitely regrets is not talking to him more about the trooper from Tuanul who committed a suicide. When Kylo told her the story the night before she left, she found no words to console him. That wasn’t right. She failed him, and perhaps it gave him the impression he was indeed unforgivable and unredeemable. Perhaps he thought she left so soon because she hated him after hearing that story.

In reality, while the story is terrible, there were many things Rey could have said. For example, she could have reminded him how much good his initiative to release the stormtroopers’ files had done. Thousands of people found their homes and families. Thousands were grateful to him. It may have saved his life during Hux’s coup, when so many troopers took Kylo’s side.

But at the time, in the middle of the night, still reeling from the shock of her nightmare, she didn’t think of it and didn’t say anything. And then she left him alone. It’s true she is impulsive and impatient – that’s how she ended up on the _Supremacy_ in an escape pod – but this time there was more than that to her hasty departure. She had saved Ben, she had healed him with the Force, only to hear him say time and again that he should have died. She didn’t want to hear it any longer. He acted as if it didn’t matter what his death would have done to _her_. As if he didn’t care at all about her feelings and the life he could have with her. All that counted was his tragic past, his guilt, his need for atonement, his this, his that.

That was selfish of him, but she is also being selfish in her resentment. She tries to shake it off; after all, there are reasons to celebrate rather than to wallow in misery. She has a new lightsaber and she’s on the way to a place she likes, where she will see her friends.

She commed Poe and Finn just after leaving the _Finalizer_. She wasn’t sure how that conversation would go, given the tense atmosphere during their escape from Exegol. But they seemed very happy and immediately agreed to meet her wherever she wanted. She promised to contact them again once she was done with the lightsaber. At the time, the two men and all the other Resistance members were still on Naboo. Now, one month later, she has no idea if they have stayed together. She hopes so, but it probably can’t last forever anyway. Each of them needs to build a life for himself after the war.

She thought she would be seeing Poe in various meetings with allies she and Kylo held after the end of the war, when Rey was still with the Order. But curiously, even though he had been groomed as Leia’s successor, Poe must have taken the back seat after the final battle because it was D’Acy who came to those gatherings instead.

Sitting in the cockpit of her brand new First Order ship and staring idly at the blue streaks of hyperspace outside the viewport, Rey wonders why Poe disappeared and whether he’s now back to the meeting table. She’s looking forward to hearing what he and the rest of her Resistance friends are planning. And above all, she’s itching to see Finn.

* * *

When they break atmo, Saar-Yen-Dii leans towards the viewport.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, her eyes shining again. It was definitely a good decision to get this kid off the star destroyer.

On approach, Rey finds Takodana as stunning as she remembered it, even if it’s a very bittersweet memory; last time she flew above these lakes and lush forests, it was in the _Falcon_, and Han Solo sat next to her.

Maz Kanata has rebuilt her castle on the shore of Nymeve Lake. She worked with the Resistance during the war but stayed here, busy with the reconstruction. The castle stands tall and proud now, as if the war and the First Order had never come here. For a moment, Rey gives in to the illusion of going back in time. It certainly seems time has stopped when Maz comes out onto the lawn to greet them. Rey commed her beforehand, asking if they could spend the night at the castle.

Maz’s smile and her wise eyes remain unchanged, despite everything that has transpired since their last meeting one and a half years ago. Rey, in contrast, feels like she has aged a hundred years.

“Where is my boyfriend?” Maz protests, on seeing the two women approach her.

“Chewie is coming in a few days,” Rey laughs as she hugs her. “So good to see you, Maz, and good to see this place restored to its former glory. Is it as popular as before?”

“Oh, the business actually got better. People travel even more now that the war is over. And the celebration mood is still in the air. All in all, it’s as merry a place as it used to be.”

When they enter the boisterous bar, Saar-Yen-Dii’s head turns to all sides, her eyes wide. The space is full of all species, humans and aliens, in all shapes and colours, speaking loudly in all possible languages. Live music is playing.

Despite the place being crowded, Rey and Saar-Yen-Dii attract attention. Not everyone knows Rey’s face, even if it was on the holonet, but everyone notices the lightsabers clipped to their belts. They are given a wide berth and soon sit down in one of the booths together with Maz as drinks are being served.

They talk about everything, starting with Leia. There is such comfort in talking to Maz, she always knows what to say, and after Saar-Yen-Dii wanders off to join a group of Cerean travellers, Rey finds herself telling Maz everything without reservation. About what happened on Exegol, about the last battle, about her yellow eyes, about Ben’s torment, their relationship and their separation.

Maz nods and hums in agreement, and at the end of it doesn’t seem worried or surprised in the slightest.

“When you live long enough, you learn to appreciate the benefit of letting time pass,” she comments. “The very length of life determines the extent of our patience. You humans want everything immediately, and it’s understandable, because life is short for you. But good things never come easy and always take time.”

She pats Rey’s hand affectionately and smiles.

“Stay as long as you want,” she offers. “You don’t need to have a plan right away. Don’t hurry anything. For now, just enjoy this place, talk to people, rest. The answers to the questions you’re asking yourself will come, perhaps when you least expect them. We like to anticipate things because we want to control them. But some of the best things cannot be controlled. You wanted time to breathe and think. So breathe and think.”

“I hoped you’d let me stay for some time,” Rey admits. “If you have rooms for us, I’d be more than happy to spend a few weeks here. I can help you run the bar. And I can pay. I have money.”

She does have money. Kylo gave her a stack of credit chips when she was leaving and got really angry when she tried to refuse them.

“I take note you don’t want my money,” he said. “You’re too proud for that. One day, if I have nothing and you have plenty, will you just let me starve? Or is it only receiving that is so difficult for you? You are penniless, Rey. The Resistance didn’t pay you, did they? So what are you going to do while travelling, scavenge?”

“I could find little jobs wherever I go, in a cantina, for example…”

“Over my dead body. The hero that saved the galaxy from Palpatine will not be serving tables in a cantina,” Kylo growled, his eyes shooting fire. He looked so appealing that Rey gave in – also, he was right, it was dumb to insist on that as a matter of principle – and took the credits. She didn’t need many when she and Saar-Yen-Dii flew around looking for kyber crystals because she had stocked the ship with enough food rations and water for a month. But now, the money could come in handy.

Maz pushes her hand with a credit chip away, laughing.

“You think I’ll charge you for the room? No, Rey. The rooms and the board for you two are on me. Consider this as part of an official payback for your services for the galaxy.”

The room Rey gets is cosy, with a beautiful view of the lake and the forest. It’s on the second floor of the castle and has a small balcony, just enough to put a chair out. Saar-Yen-Dii gets a room on the same floor. After the first day the girl already has made friends among the younger travellers. Some of them might actually be smugglers, Rey suspects, but it’s fine; Saar-Yen-Dii might want to become a Jedi, but she needs to have her youth, too, and meet different people. This is what Rey firmly believes in. In her new Jedi Order, children won’t be taken away from their families and raised as if being a Jedi was their only purpose. Everyone needs a _life_, too.

Maz leaves her to rest in the afternoon but insists on seeing her again later in the evening. She says Rey needs to watch something important on the holonet.

* * *

“So, this began soon after you left the Order,” Maz says as a holovid starts to play. “Once everyone got over the first joy of victory and the shock at the price it came at, they started questioning the methods your boyfriend used to win the war.”

“What?!” Rey exclaims. What in the galaxy can Maz mean? Ben ended everything peacefully. He even spared the enemy, he saved everyone! Do people criticise the fact he used the Force? Do they think his capacity to influence minds, collectively and at distance, is a threat? Are they afraid he will be abusing it?

Her mind races. But as it turns out, it’s not about any of that.

She watches a recording of a holonet debate in which the hosts and the invited guests, representing mostly the Core Worlds, acknowledge (somewhat reluctantly, Rey notes) that Kylo saved the Core, but they demand justice for the enemy. The clone army surrendered, following Kylo’s battle meditation. So, where are all those clones now? Are they in the First Order’s prisons? What is going to happen to them? They are war criminals, responsible for the destruction of Espirion and Coruscant, as well as for countless other damages and billions of deaths around the galaxy. They need to pay for that. A collective trial? Perhaps at least for the commanders?

Or better still, a collective execution. Nobody feels like paying for the room and board of three million clones – because this is more or less the size of their army – during a lifetime imprisonment. Are they even people? Who were they cloned from? Do they have individual minds? Do they need to be treated like people, should they have the same rights as other sentient beings?

Should we even bother with their rights?

The questions, Rey thinks, could reasonably be expected. Ben did expect them at some point. But the light tone the participants of the debate are taking, their cruel amusement, chills her. They’re talking about people’s lives as if they were nothing. They are actually fantasising about killing them.

Rey remembers vividly the day Leia announced that Kylo Ren offered to open negotiations between the First Order and the Resistance. Everyone cheered at the news of Hux’s death and nobody liked the idea of a peace deal, preferring to defeat the Order in a battle. They saw no problem killing off millions of people if it came to that, they actually _preferred_ those millions to die. It’s normal; enemy lives are always cheap in a war. How many stormtroopers died on that dreadnought Poe and the others took out in a feat of bravery? Did anyone stop for a moment to think that those troopers were victims too, kidnapped as kids from their families and conditioned to fight for the Order? Or did the Resistance just celebrate the victory and mourn its own dead?

Rey herself butchered hundreds of Sith troopers – clones – in the Exegol throne room, out of pure hatred and despair, when she thought Ben had died. She remembers well the feeling, the Darkness flowing through her veins. She knows how easy it is to let the Darkness carry you away in a moment like that and to use a just cause as an excuse for mass murder. She knows how strong the desire of revenge can be and how it can be mistaken for the desire of justice. Later, in the battle of Coruscant, she blew up three of the imperial star destroyers with the Force, killing everyone on board, before Kylo woke up and stopped her. Those were probably thousands of people. She didn’t exert any self-control. She let the rage, the Darkness, take the lead and overwhelm her.

But Kylo resisted it. Once trained as a Jedi, he may have become a killer under Snoke, but he told Rey many times he had never killed for pleasure. The first and only time he did, when he let the Darkness take him completely and tortured Hux, it disgusted and terrified him.

So Rey can imagine how disgusted Kylo must have been watching that holonet debate, in which his decision to save lives was criticised. It is ironic, really, that he who has taken so many lives should turn out to be a more wholesome person than all those good citizens demanding a mass execution of three million people with a glint of excitement in their eyes. In the end, dark impulses live in everyone, waiting for a chance to come up to the surface. During a war everyone can show their best or their worst. Somehow it always ends with most people showing their worst.

Rey still cannot come to terms completely with her own recent descent into the Darkness. It’s true that she couldn’t really avoid taking the lives of those Sith troopers in Exegol’s throne room, nor those of the crews of the imperial star destroyers. She could have tried influencing their minds collectively, like Kylo did later, but she would probably not have succeeded, having had no training in it whatsoever. She had to defend herself and try to save the fleet. It wasn’t killing for pleasure. It wasn’t unnecessary deaths.

Yet, at the same time, she can’t deny she enjoyed it. It wasn’t defence or necessity that motivated her primarily. It was revenge. And that’s an important distinction.

To a Jedi, at least.

* * *

Maz shows Rey how the discussion evolved later. More debates; more voices in favour of executing the clones. Aren’t they a danger anyway? If they can be manipulated so easily, who says they won’t be manipulated again, and turn on us? And then suddenly everyone demands the First Order to come clean about it. The debate ceases to be civilised; hatred pours out. Those who lost someone, those who got traumatised in the war – that is to say, almost everyone – want the clones’ blood. They suggest various ways of killing them. They make jokes about it.

It’s crude, ugly and brutal. Rey is shocked by the virulence of it. How quickly the fever spread, how quickly the wave of post-victory gratitude towards the Order subsided! Somewhere, on the margins of the clone debate, even if nobody says it aloud – because they are afraid, Kylo would certainly say – there is an implication that war criminals save other war criminals so that they can all get away with it.

Until Poe Dameron speaks up.

Rey watches an interview with Poe which takes place after a major meeting of the Alliance on Chandrila, one of the Core Worlds that has been the least affected by the war. After the meeting, media representatives stop the decision makers after they go out of the the room, asking them for a reaction on the clone issue, although the meeting was not about that.

In the holovid, Rey briefly sees Kylo leaving the place. He does not stop for any media. Not that she expected he would, but perhaps he should? Poe does, in any case. Which also means Poe is back in the game; he now represents the Resistance in official meetings again.

“It would be good if people finally decided what they want,” Poe says, looking straight at the cam droid. “When the First Order, Snoke and Kylo Ren rule by terror and kill people, we are all outraged. But when Kylo Ren spares lives, we are outraged again? I bet you any sum of credits that if he had destroyed the whole imperial fleet and killed all the clones in that battle, now everyone would be saying it was inhumane, he is unhinged and dangerous. It was either kill them or spare them. There was no kriffing third option. Just make up your bloody mind, people.”

“Do you know where the clones are now?” the journalist interrupts him.

Poe hesitates for a split second, so briefly that it’s difficult to spot for someone who doesn’t know him. Rey understands his problem. It’s not for him to tell the public, but if he doesn’t, if he says the First Order keeps it secret, how will it reflect on the Alliance?

“They’re in the First Order’s detention facilities,” he says in the end. “All right? You want to kill them? Would you just starve them or would you rather end it quickly, by a blaster shot to every head? This whole discussion is sick. It shows we haven’t learnt enough from this war.”

He looks at the cam droid earnestly.

“There are no easy decisions in a time of war,” he resumes. “But General Organa, Kylo Ren’s mother and commander in chief of the Resistance, always said that preserving lives is the most important thing. This is also what our Jedi Rey thought, and she was trained by Luke Skywalker himself. She defeated Palpatine and his army together with Kylo Ren. So maybe Kylo Ren also learnt that lesson. I certainly did, because it was not always my way, either. Maybe we should all heed the Jedi way a bit more.”

Rey is immensely grateful to Poe for speaking up, for bringing up Ben’s family connection to Leia, for mentioning Luke, who is after all a legend, for using all the elements that should make a good impression on people. For crafting this speech in such a clever way. Even for bringing up Kylo’s past, which was on everyone’s mind anyway, and for calling people out on that argument.

But…

She should have been there. _She _should have defended Kylo’s decision. She shouldn’t have been absent from that conversation. Why didn’t Kylo say anything about the clone problem in the messages they exchanged? He could have asked her for help. Her voice would have counted. The voices of her and Kylo combined: the voice of the new Jedi Council.

“But that’s just the beginning,” Maz says. “Your boyfriend followed that up with a public statement. Here it is. Read it, Rey.”

Of course Kylo wouldn’t _speak_ to the media. He published a statement instead. But what a statement!

The document announces the imminent opening of Nova, a First Order industrial, scientific and technological hub located in the Wild Space. It won’t be built on a planet or a moon – it will be Palpatine’s former superweapon, the one taken over by the First Order a few weeks earlier. The giant space structure is going to be transformed, its power and facilities put to a new use.

The new hub will drive innovation, and not just in the defence field, although it will also develop better planetary shields, hyperspace tracking systems, and so on. Beyond that, however, it will serve civilian purposes. Its researchers will work on new methods of mining minerals and optimising agricultural crops so that less affluent Outer Rim worlds can exploit their resources better. Experts will also explore and test safer ways of tracing hyperspace routes through the uncharted territory. And these are just a few examples of future projects.

Even though the First Order owns the facilities, recruitment will be open to professionals and scientists from all the allied worlds and systems. Governments and galactic megacorporations are called upon to join the effort as investors. It’s not supposed to be just a First Order project, it’s for everybody, and common enterprises should be run and financed together, the statement emphasises. Just like the war was, and just like the new galactic government will be.

Some of the clones, after the effects of Palpatine’s conditioning are reversed, will be employed in the new hub in the capacity of technicians and manual workers. The First Order will also use the captured imperial ships and their clone crews, now placed under the Order and its allies’ command, to patrol trade routes and major hyperspace lane junctions all over the galaxy. This will be the first step towards clamping down on piracy and organised crime, especially spice trade and sentient beings trafficking.

There will be no executions of the clones, who are the First Order’s prisoners of war and whose fate is up to the Order’s Supreme Leader to decide, in agreement with the allies.

Just that. One short paragraph at the end, no other explanation, no attempt to enter into any argument with those who call for a massive bloodbath, no acknowledgement that a debate on that issue is even ongoing.

This thing has Kylo Ren written all over it. He will do what he thinks is right, he will make others do what he wants them to do, and he won’t be wasting any time justifying himself to anyone. This side of him is definitely not all good, as shown in the past. But it can be useful, too. It’s exactly what is needed here.

“And what happened next?” Rey asks.

“What do you think happened?” Maz chuckles. “Those who called for the clones’ death were mainly from the rich Core Worlds. Those who will benefit from their reconversion are in the poor Outer Rim, which was always your boyfriend’s strongest support base. He has effectively shut the Core up by that move, because nobody will question a project aiming to ensure safety for everyone and to bring the Rim closer to the living standards of the Core. Also, he wants to end the criminal syndicates and to trace hyperspace lanes through the Unknown Regions, the two long-standing dreams of every idealist in this galaxy. They have never come true, not under the Empire, not under the Republic. But now, with Ren’s power and resources, within the Alliance that he will lead, who knows? They might. And all this is possible only because he has plenty of free new ships, with the crews to man them. Who will now criticise the idea to spare their lives? First of all, who cares now? There’s a new big project in the galaxy that everyone will love. A new thing to talk about.”

Maz is right. When Rey browses through other news items and watches other holovids, it turns out that countless galactic systems responded to Kylo’s statement immediately, expressing their support. Scientists, engineers, pilots, lawmakers and other experts reacted as well, either declaring their interest to work in the Nova hub or starting conversations about the potential of the projects outlined by Kylo. These conversations gradually drown the clone debate. New ideas, a promise of a new future, capture the galaxy’s collective imagination.

It was high time for that, like after every war. Time to not only rebuild what had been destroyed, but also to dream new dreams.

* * *

Rey barely has the time to get back to her room and close the door behind her when the bond opens. She may have given it a little tug. She really needs to talk to Ben after seeing all that. She was going to comm him anyway to tell him about the lightsabers and Takodana, but this will have to wait now.

He must have just come out of the shower. Shirtless, in his sleeping pants, he is rubbing his tousled hair with a towel. For a moment, Rey forgets everything and just stares at him hungrily. It’s been a month since she saw him, and more than that since she last had an opportunity to fully enjoy this gorgeous body now on display.

“Would you like me to get a cowl or something?” he asks, glancing at her and raising an eyebrow in amusement. Rey laughs.

“Is this how you say hello to me after a month?”

“I’ve been walking around shirtless all this time, waiting for you to show up. Finally here you are.”

She can hardly believe how light and playful this conversation starts, given how sad their last one was.

“Ben, I’m on Takodana. I’ve just watched this whole clone story on the holonet, I’m so sorry it came to this –”

He waves his hand dismissingly.

“It’s nothing. We’ve shut these idiots up.”

“You’re not upset?”

“On the contrary,” he says, pulling, to her regret, a grey top over his head and covering his chest. “It made me understand I might not be the biggest asshole in the galaxy.”

He shakes his head, combing his damp hair with his fingers.

“They were ready to slaughter three million people,” he frowns. “Prisoners of war who had surrendered. You’d think they were looking forward to it, all excited. Just like Hux before firing his Starkiller.”

“You’ve dealt with it so well though,” Rey insists. “And not with any PR tricks. You proposed a real thing. This project you presented – it’s amazing. This will bring a new hope to so many people and worlds.”

“Thank you,” he says, looking at her with a smile.

He looks very well. Not just handsome and healthy, but also sharp. Determined, and not at all overwhelmed as he seemed to her in the first week after the battle of Coruscant. Perhaps he was just tired and still recovering, but even then, she remembers, he ran certain meetings so well, he was able to gauge the mood in the room and to steer the discussion without saying much himself. He takes a little after his mother, but he also knows how to play his other advantages. He commands respect. He tolerates no bantha shit, no meaningless diplomatic talk, he just goes straight to the point, and he finds solutions. Like he did in this case.

“You must have been planning that for some time?”

“I was planning various things. I mentioned some during the negotiations on Pasaana, remember? But the idea to transform the superweapon into an innovation hub came only recently, after the clone discussion started. We worked on the plans hard for a week, and then I just announced it. A lot of work is needed before it’s up and running, but we didn’t want to wait any longer. Not just because of the clones. It’s also to tap into the pockets of megacorporations. They can’t refuse to contribute, not now that the whole galaxy is mourning its dead. I’ve got them and I won’t let them go.”

There is no trace of self-loathing, no emotional torment. He is calm and focused, and even… enthusiastic? The best combination of Ben Solo and Kylo Ren. It occurs to Rey that she has never complimented him on his leadership skills or his capacity to solve problems. It’s true that even after initiating the negotiations with the Resistance he made it clear he hated that kind of process, and it took a long time to convince him to build the Alliance. But now, he has grown into the role.

“Maybe ruling the galaxy is after all the right job for you,” Rey admits. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“I have doubted myself a lot too.”

“I was happy to see what Poe said. That was spot on.”

“It was. It wasn’t something I could have said, obviously. But I was grateful he did.”

“I can’t believe my ears,” Rey laughs. “You and Poe Dameron speaking well of each other? I see I’ve been absent for too long. A lot has changed.”

“Maybe not a lot. But a little has changed, yes.”

They are standing very close to each other now, and his gaze softens. He reaches out and strokes her cheek.

“Ben, I’m sorry,” Rey whispers, leaning into his touch, which is warm and soothing. Only now does she realize, with a tinge of pain, how much she missed this. “I should have helped you. What Poe said about the Jedi way – it was for me to say it. I abandoned you when you needed me most.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “I told you already that you had done enough. For the galaxy and for me. It was my job to deal with this. It was a consequence of my decision and my actions, and this time I wasn’t ashamed of them. I was ready to defend them. Dameron helped a lot, but I didn’t expect any help.”

“You see, the past does not always come back for us in a bad way,” Rey remarks, snaking her arms around his waist. “Sometimes we reap rewards for the good we have done.”

Ben nods.

“There’s more, but enough about me for now,” he says. “I want to know how you have been.”

“I have something to show you.”

She lets go of him, picks up her lightsaber from the bedside table and ignites it.

Ben doesn’t say anything for a moment, just watches the weapon with a look of appreciation. For some reason, he seems surprised in a strangely happy way.

“Magnificent,” he speaks in the end. “Did you make the hilt from your staff? Of course you did.”

“Saar-Yen-Dii has built hers too,” Rey informs him proudly. “A darker colour blade. Orange.”

“As was to be expected. Give her my best. I’m proud of her.”

He glances at Rey with a peculiar smile.

“What?” she smiles back. She’s loving this exchange. Not in a thousand years would she expect their first conversation after a month to be so cheerful, and certainly not since she found out about the problems he had had to deal with recently.

“I have something to show you too,” Ben announces, reaching behind him. When he turns back to her, he’s holding the hilt of his old crossguard.

He ignites it and Rey utters a little cry of shock.

First of all, it’s not really a crossguard anymore. The blade is stable, the unpleasant crackling and sizzling sound no longer present. There are no lateral beams, which were needed previously to divert the extra heat generated by the cracked crystal, although the vents are still attached to the handle.

Second –

The blade is golden yellow, just like hers.

“What is it? What have you done, Ben?”

“I’ve healed it.”

“You’ve done what?”

“I have healed the crystal,” Ben repeats. “It was my old crystal from Luke’s temple. When I turned and went to Snoke, I had to bleed it. I made it suffer. But it’s tied to me; I couldn’t just get rid of it, it wouldn’t be right to throw it away. So I disassembled the hilt, took the crystal out and meditated with it.”

“So it’s true one can purify a corrupted crystal! But how? I know it’s a living thing, but –”

“No buts. I healed it the same way you healed me, Rey.”

“Using the Light,” Rey exclaims. “You can heal with the Force now! It’s a Light side skill.”

Ben shrugs.

“You know my opinion on this. It’s a Force skill. Full stop.”

“That’s what Anakin said when he appeared to me on Exegol. I tried to heal you and he told me to forget the Light and the Dark, just reach out with the feelings I had for you.”

“Yes. The crystal is attuned to me, it’s a reflection of me in the Force. So if it let me heal it and if the result is a blend of red and green, the Light and the Darkness – so am I.”

“We’ve both reached balance. And our blades are the same colour now.”

“I hoped they would be,” Ben smiles, and she smiles back again.

“Why do you still need the lateral vents though?” Rey wants to know.

“I don’t. I was just too lazy to remove them. I’ll do it in the next days and I’ll also redo the wiring more neatly.”

He extinguishes the saber and rolls the hilt slowly in his hand.

“I’m glad I was able to do that,” he says.

_I’m so happy for you. And so impressed! _

_Thank you, Rey._

He pulls her to him tentatively, as if he was testing her reaction, waiting for a signal that the contact is wanted, and when she responds to his touch, he envelops her in his embrace.

“Ben,” Rey whispers, sliding her hands inside the loose sleeves of his top and up his arms. His skin is so smooth. She can smell him now, spices and wood, she can feel the heat of his body, and her skin tingles.

“Rey,” he murmurs, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against hers. When she nudges him with her head, he leans down and kisses her slowly, lightly, just enough for her to feel the pressure of his mouth. Rey moans, melting into him. It’s been a month. She could stay for hours on end just brushing her lips against his, just flicking the tip of her tongue –

But the bond starts dissolving. Of course it does. The Force likes to toy with them. Rey groans, frustrated.

“It’s all right,” Ben speaks. He pulls away to look at her and smiles again. She has never seen him smile so much. “Let’s not force it. It knows better than we do.”

They remain still for a moment, their arms interlinked, drinking each other in.

“Go do your thing, Rey. We will see each other again,” he says and vanishes, leaving her gazing after him in wonder.

Something has changed. The tide has turned. She wonders what caused it; the new project, the crystal, both? But maybe also something else they didn’t have time to talk about? He did say there was more he wanted to tell her –

For now, let it be enough. Until they see each other again. She hasn’t asked where or how, but it’s all right. The Force has brought them together time and again, so it should perhaps be trusted.

Not just the Force. She should trust him, too. He didn’t look lost, miserable or confused; on the contrary, he seemed calm and confident. And strong. The new hub… and the healing of the crystal… she truly didn’t expect all that. She underestimated him and his capacity to bounce back.

This too is both Ben Solo and Kylo Ren. He has suffered worse adversity than that and he has always fought back with astonishing tenacity. He wouldn’t just give up and fall apart; he would parry and retaliate. Especially when put under pressure, he would rise to the challenge, just like he did in the battle of Coruscant. He can save himself.

In bed, she wraps around her shoulders the shawl Ben gave her when she first arrived on the _Finalizer_. Now that she sleeps alone again, the cold of Jakku desert nights has returned. She drifts off with the memory of Ben’s warm skin under the tips of her fingers, the incredible softness of his lips, and his smell.

At the other end of the bond, there is peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, did you like the return to Takodana and Maz, one of my beloved characters? And what are your thoughts on the new developments on Ben’s side? Let me know, I live for your feedback. xx


	20. Chapter 20

They’re standing in a small circle, their arms around one another, still smiling from the intensity of the group hug.

Rose, Finn, Poe, Chewie, Rey. Kaydel should be here too. Kaydel, who died on Espirion with Leia and so many others, and whom they haven’t even had the time to mourn properly.

For the first few minutes, nobody says anything. From the moment the H-type Nubian yacht touched down and Rey saw them all at the top of the ramp, no words could convey what she felt. It’s their first meeting since the end of the war, and Rey has waited for them on Takodana for two weeks, because Poe couldn’t get away from his official duties. Last time Rey saw Finn, Poe and Chewie was six weeks ago on the _Finalizer_, above Coruscant, after the journey from Exegol. Last time she saw Rose was on Pasaana, which feels like ages ago.

It’s their first meeting ever in times of peace.

The smiles fade away, another group hug is in order, and this time tears come. For Leia, for Kaydel, for Snap Wexley, for the others. Victory is bittersweet for the Resistance.

There is no use talking about the past as they all feel the same. The question of the future, the big unknown, is at the forefront of their minds.

So when they sit down in Maz’s bar around drinks a few minutes later, it’s this future they begin to talk about.

* * *

“Rose has the best plan,” Finn puts his arm amicably around Rose’s shoulders. There was a time when Rey thought these two would end up together. They may have fooled around a bit. But it seems they are just friends now, there is no big romantic story, at least not for the time being – perhaps this too will change in the future, now that they actually have mental space for love because they don’t need to think about war anymore.

“She is applying to the Nova hub!” Finn announces.

“Is it true, Rose?” Rey exclaims. Actually, she should have anticipated that. Rose was the Resistance’s best engineer and mechanic. When Kylo invited experts from all over the galaxy to apply, he obviously meant people like Rose. It’s a dream job for her. And yet, even if there is an alliance in force between the First Order and what remains of the Resistance, Rey didn’t expect her friends to consider any form of cooperation with the Order beyond what was strictly necessary to win the war against Palpatine.

“And how she applied! Rose, why don’t you tell her?” Finn nudges the other woman. “You won’t believe this, Rey. _She wrote to Kylo Ren_!”

“You did what?” Rey stutters, dumbfounded.

“Well, we did get personal comlink codes of all the Order’s leadership on Pasaana, so I thought… what the hell!” Rose grins. “I wanted to tell him how much I liked the decision to create this hub, and I had some ideas of projects Nova could be running… so yeah, I wrote to him. I thought I’d try to make a case for myself.”

“She started the message by ‘Dear Kylo’!” Poe interjects, laughing so hard he has tears in his eyes.

“You didn’t!” Rey exclaims.

“Did too!” Finn insists. “We couldn’t believe it when we saw the message!”

“How was I supposed to start? Dear Supreme Leader? Dear Mr Ren?”

“I’m sorry if he hasn’t replied yet, Rose,” Rey says. “He’s very busy, please don’t be offended –”

“Ah but he has! He replied on the same day! He said I needn’t apply, he’s giving me the job as soon as it’s available! He also said Leia talked to him about me. Look, here’s the message!”

“Who would expect him to be so smooth?” Poe winks at Rey.

“Rose, this is amazing!” Rey shouts, incredulous and delighted at the same time. “It’s like a whole new life!”

“That’s why we’re all so jealous,” Finn says. “It’s all much more fuzzy for the rest of us. For my part, Rey, you might be surprised, but I’d actually like to try my hand at something to do with stormtroopers, or even with these clones from Palpatine’s army.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, I know about conditioning,” he takes a deep breath. “I understand how it feels when you are slowly coming out of it, when your world and the limits of your freedom suddenly expand. For example, when stormtroopers got to know their origins and families, it might have confused them. They may have felt really lost. I’m sure the Order has therapists and counsellors to deal with it, but I thought – as an actual ex-trooper, I have a perspective that they don’t, and –”

“Finn, are you saying you’d like to work for the First Order?!”

He winces at that slightly, but Poe winks at Rey again, and she smiles.

“If it’s to become a peacekeeping force,” Finn shrugs, “I thought, actually, why not? What’s wrong with that? And it’s nice to be part of – a big project for the good of the galaxy, you know? Assuming that’s what they’ll really do. It looks like Ren is serious about it. So, on the one hand, something in me screams ‘it’s the First Order!’, but then, when I think about it rationally – yeah, this is a job I’d like to do.”

“You haven’t written to Kylo too by any chance, have you?” Rey smiles. Finn shakes his head.

“No. He and I… have a history, and I don’t want to ask him for a favour. He has already done right by me. He gave me back my family.”

“I could do it,” Rey offers. “I could talk to him.”

“No, Rey, don’t. Not now, in any case. Let me think about it a bit more.”

“Speaking about family and origins,” Rey resumes, resolving to come back to the idea at some other time and convince Finn to let her ask Kylo, “Do I still call you Finn?”

“Yes,” he smiles. It turned out Finn’s real name, the one his parents gave him at birth, is Dahlen. Dahlen Vries.

“But my parents call me Dahlen, and it’s fine too. I think I want to keep both. It doesn’t feel right to get rid of any of the two.”

“Yeah,” Rey says. “I understand. I know someone else in a similar situation. And what about Jannah?”

“She’s also keeping her First Order name. The funny thing is her real name is Jade. So it’s even similar…”

“Where is she now?”

“She went back to the Order after the battle of Coruscant. But we talk all the time, and she’s taking a few days of leave soon to come to Naboo. My parents and younger brother will be coming too. Jannah is very loyal to Ren. Maybe this makes me feel less… hostile towards the First Order. I mean, my sister is part of it. Some decent people I met are part of it. So I guess working for them can’t be a total disgrace.”

“If someone had told me that about you one year ago,” Rey says, “I would have never believed it.”

“But do you like the idea?” Finn asks hopefully. She missed these friendly open conversations with him.

“I cannot imagine a better thing for you. You would be really good at it. You could help people. And I do understand the wish to contribute to something bigger.”

“We all do,” Poe comments with a tinge of sarcasm. “Not easy to step down from that pedestal once you’ve been the galaxy’s force for good for so long.”

“I see there’s a story there,” Rey beckons the waitress over. They need another round of drinks. “Are you going to tell us?”

“Not much to tell,” Poe shrugs. “I wanted to get out of it for a bit after the war… also because I met an old friend –”

“Not really, no,” Rose cuts him off. “I wouldn’t call that _friendship_ –”

“Well, a lover then. We were thrown together close to the end of the war because she was working with the Alliance, and after the battle of Coruscant I left Naboo with her. We went to her home world, Kijimi, and we stayed there for two weeks. I had big plans. I thought I could be a pilot again, live a quiet life, far from all this galactic mess,” he smiles. “But it didn’t work.”

“That’s a shame. But there are other women in the galaxy, waiting to meet a handsome Resistance pilot…”

“Oh, no,” Poe shakes his head, laughing. “It’s not that. It worked with her, actually. Her name is Zorii Bliss. She’s my age, so… maybe we know better now what we want than when we met for the first time, years ago. She used to be a smuggler … Anyway, what didn’t work is my staying away from politics.”

“I saw on the holonet that you were back in the Alliance meetings...”

“Leia wanted me to be part of it. She wanted me to be her successor, and I wasn’t even sure… until I left and found that I missed it. I missed my place at that table, with Ren and the others who are now discussing the future of the galaxy. I owe it to Leia, but also, I actually _feel like doing it. _So after two weeks of holidaying and reading holonet headlines, I returned to Naboo…”

“And what about Zorii?” Rey asks, somewhat sadly. Of course she compares his story to her own.

“All good. We’re now visiting each other. I don’t want it to go too fast, but we’re doing fine.”

And now, of course, they all look at Rey expectantly. It’s her turn to talk, and Poe has introduced the subject with his romantic story. Somehow, stupidly, Rey hoped she’d avoid this conversation, but of course she can’t. Of course they were going to ask about her and Kylo.

Chewie wails a question.

“Ben is fine, Chewie. He had… some problems when I was leaving, one and a half months ago. He felt guilty, he kept saying he should have died. I think he’s in a much better place now.”

“Why did you leave, Rey?” Finn asks.

“I wanted to find out the same thing as you,” Rey looks around the table at their faces. “What kind of life I want. And I want him in it, I do. It’s just that I don’t want to live from one meeting to another, day after day, on a starship in space. I want a home. I want to meet other Force sensitive people and learn together. I want a… a normal life, too.”

Chewie wails again.

“I don’t really know,” Rey says quietly. “I don’t know what happens to me and him now. He’s very busy… he wants to make amends for his past, and for now this seems to be more important than anything else. And I…”

She sighs and shakes her head.

“Well, this is where we are,” she resumes. “I’m here to have some rest and think. I need to figure out what’s next.”

“I get it that Ren feels he needs to prove himself, after all he did,” Poe speaks. “But for me, to be honest, taking out old Palps in teamwork with you and winning that battle in the Core was enough to redeem him. He doesn’t need to spend every waking hour until the end of his life moving stars and planets for the greater good. In his head, though, it probably looks different.”

“You say it as if you didn’t hold any grudge against him anymore,” Rey frowns. “What about the interrogation? He tortured you. Have you forgotten that?”

“I haven’t forgotten. I have chosen to let it go. We were at war. He didn’t hurt me any more than he needed to, in order to get what he wanted. It wasn’t really personal, and honestly, if the tables had been turned, I would have done as much to him. Plus I get the feeling if I wanted to punch him for that now, he would let me. So maybe he should stop punching himself so much.”

“I don’t know,” Finn says hesitatingly. “For me it’s a bit different. Sure, he has changed, I’ll give him that, and he did a lot for me personally. But when I look at him… I can’t help seeing the man who ran Han Solo through with a lightsaber and watched him plunge to his death. I see the man who threw Rey at a tree, who beat his wound savagely and tried to kill me. It was the worst day of my life, and I can’t stop seeing it or really forgive him. Not yet.”

“Neither can he,” Rey mutters.

Everyone glances uneasily at Chewie who looks away, silent.

“We should be talking about it, Chewie,” Rey prompts. “It was the three of us on that day, you, Finn, and I. We’ve never talked about that moment properly.”

Chewie turns towards her and wails his reply.

_When I look at him, I see the little boy from the drawing he made me. I will always see that boy. If only I could see someone else when I looked at him on Starkiller, it would have been much simpler. It would have hurt much less._

* * *

One week passes with all of them together on Takodana, a happy time for Rey and for Saar-Yen-Dii. In the mornings, Rey and she train. The rest of the day they spend with the whole group, helping Maz, chatting to other travellers, visiting Takodana, lounging on the grass by the lake.

Peace times. No clearly defined goal on the horizon, no urgency. Rey used to be afraid of that state. She thought she would feel lost. But now, with her friends, she feels free instead. It’s like a holiday, something she had only heard about but never experienced.

The bond hasn’t opened since their last conversation three weeks ago. She and Ben send each other messages, not every day, but almost, which is more frequently than before. She asks about his work, and he tells her a little. He’s visiting the affected worlds, assessing the damage, providing help, supervising the reconstruction, talking to the local authorities. A series of documentaries is being produced for the holonet about the aftermath of the war, and the wide public discovers for the first time many remote, obscure, often beautiful worlds. They start getting visited by tourists who want to help with rebuilding. Donations from rich philanthropists, industrialists, and individual citizens begin to flow in. It helps reinforce the feeling of unity and solidarity. It is, after all, everyone’s tragedy – Palpatine’s random strikes touched different worlds, rich and poor, densely and sparsely populated, well known and unknown, all over the galaxy.

The documentaries never show Kylo. He doesn’t appear in any holonet programmes, either. But others do. General Daere is now the First Order’s chief spokesperson, talking to the media. Making her the Order’s face was a great move, even if Rey is not entirely sure Kylo was fully conscious of the marketing appeal; it might be that he simply trusts her. A woman and an alien, in an organization which was so long almost exclusively human and male, the Keshiri speaks for the Supreme Leader himself, and she speaks well. She is a likeable, competent person who immediately becomes popular. A good communicator, she treats the media respectfully and in a friendly way, which Kylo probably wouldn’t.

Even to Rey, Kylo doesn’t reveal everything he does. It’s Poe who tells her about the other work – beyond the official programme – that the Supreme Leader reportedly carries out on some of the worlds he visits. Those where the damages are the worst, special equipment is lacking, the sites are difficult to access for machines, and the reconstruction proves to be challenging. He spends a day or two there, working hand in hand with manual workers and using the Force. He lifts rocks or fallen trees, he removes layers of debris, he helps demolish unsafe constructions and put up new ones.

“What?” Rey is horrified when she finds out. “How can he do that on top of all his meetings, reports, decisions and official visits? Why doesn’t he just send those worlds more equipment? The Order has everything…”

Poe shrugs.

“He does that too. He ships equipment and manpower all over the galaxy. But it’s not always enough, and I think for him that kind of work is a way of being with people, the way he can handle. Sure, he has enough on his plate without it… but I talked to Daere who saw him do it, and she said he looked happy. He talked to the workers, and they treated him like a normal person.”

“Looking happy and talking to people is not what one often sees Kylo do,” Rey concedes.

“Exactly.”

“Why didn’t he tell me about it though?”

“He doesn’t strike me as the type who likes to boast about the good things he does.”

“You seem to know him better and better. Your comments are often spot on.”

“I see him in all these meetings, so… yeah, it’s a bit strange. You know,” Poe smiles to her, “in another life, he and I could be friends. We have a lot in common. We both like flying, for one…”

“It would do him good to have a friend like you. He has very few friends.”

“Yes, but this is not because of his past. It’s more his personality – he’s not the most approachable man – but most of all, his position. It’s lonely at the top. A Supreme Leader doesn’t have friends.”

Rey sends Ben a message that evening. She hopes he’s not working himself too hard. She knows this kind of Force use – lifting and manipulating big and heavy objects with precision – requires high concentration and becomes, after a while, a serious physical effort. To do it for hours on end must be exhausting.

He replies the day is too short to do all he would like to do, but physical work makes him feel good, especially now that he spends most of his time in meetings rather than on field missions and on battlefield like he did before. He misses action.

And he likes the feeling of using the Force to build rather than destroy, he adds. The way it should be used. It’s well said, and it goes straight to Rey’s heart. She is really proud of him.

It’s just that she has the impression there is less and less room for her in his life, but she doesn’t tell him this.

_I miss you, _she writes.

_I miss you too._

He could point out she left him, so if she’s sad now, it’s her own fault. But he doesn’t, and she’s grateful to him for that. On the other hand, he could also ask her to be patient, to wait a little longer before they can start discussing a plan, before they can find a way to be together. But he doesn’t do that, either.

* * *

“What’s your next move, Rey?” Poe asks her one evening as the two of them and Finn are sitting on the grass by the lake. The weather is mild, it’s summer, but Rey has got used to wrapping herself in her shawl whenever she’s outside after sunset.

The prolonged silence after Poe’s question becomes pregnant with meaning and suddenly it’s too late to reply with something light or make an excuse. It must be clear to the two men that she doesn’t know what to answer.

“Rey, if you are waiting for Kylo Ren, I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” Finn blurts out.

“I get the message, Finn,” Rey retorts with a bit too much hostility. She is rather shocked at his brutal honesty. “You can’t forgive him. But I can make my own choices, even if you don’t approve.”

“It’s not that, Rey. You have feelings for him, he has feelings for you, and it’s fine with me. I just don’t think it will happen.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t see him in a relationship,” Finn insists. “You don’t go from being an alienated, violent and broken man who brutalised others for years and was brutalised himself, who loved and trusted nobody, who lived in some kind of alternate reality created by voices in his head, to a… to someone’s _boyfriend_.”

“You know, this is really harsh,” Rey says, her heart beating painfully in her chest. “Is it impossible for people to get over their past? Is his life over at the age of thirty, his chance for happiness all gone? Maybe I should have just left him on the floor in Exegol’s throne room because why bother?”

“I’m not saying it’s impossible. But it might take years for him to become… normal, if he ever can be.”

“You think so too?” Rey turns to Poe, who has been listening in silence. “You seem to know him better now…”

He shrugs.

“I’m not a therapist, Rey. But if you want Kylo Ren to leave the First Order and move into a cottage with you, start preaching the Jedi code, cook home dinners and play with the kids… it’s rather out of character for him.”

“I am not asking him to leave the Order. It’s important for him, it’s his life project, but it doesn’t mean we cannot be together. You and Zorii –”

“I’m not the Supreme Leader, Rey. He’s totally invested in this post-war galactic order. It’s taking all his time and energy. He flies across the galaxy non-stop.”

“The war has just ended. This phase won’t last for ever –”

“But what about his new projects?” Finn interjects. “The Order as the peacekeeping force, the Nova hub, the war against criminal syndicates, the new hyperspace routes, enhanced trade cooperation? He has his work mapped out for him for the next decades. And you know what? It’s not by chance. There are some guys,” he indicates Poe with his head, “who just need this. If there’s no war for them to fight, they will find themselves another higher purpose.”

“I might be driven by the higher purpose, by ambition, call it what you want,” Poe agrees calmly. “But he, on top of that, is also driven by guilt. So, I would say, Rey, unless you’re willing to move back onto his star destroyer and spend your days in meetings for the foreseeable future, it won’t be easy to reconcile your objectives.”

She wants to argue, to protest, but what they say goes straight to the deepest, the most insecure place in her heart, where she is afraid that her friends are absolutely right.

She’s afraid that Kylo, in his head, will never manage to reconcile a normal life with his galactic mission, and he won’t even try. She’s afraid he loves her but doesn’t believe things can really work between them in times of peace. She’s afraid she would have to be the one making all the compromises and it would be killing her slowly. She’s afraid the current situation will never change, unless she breaks and goes back to the _Finalizer_, knowing all along it’s a bad idea, but there won’t be a better alternative.

“Rey,” Finn says, taking her hand. She lets him. He and Poe might well be wrong, they may be a bit intrusive, but they want what’s best for her. If they’re telling her this, it’s because they are trying to help.

“I just don’t want you to be unhappy, Rey. I don’t want you to – to sit around and wait – because you have already spent years waiting for something that was not even –”

“Not even real,” Rey finishes for him. Oh, this hurts. It’s meant to be kind but it’s also cruel. Yes, she spent many years waiting in the desert for the parents who were never coming back, lying to herself. Is it the same now? Ben exists, at least. He does love her. They do see each other sometimes.

But perhaps he’s not the person she imagines. The person who would eventually choose her, or rather find a way to include her in his life. The person who would be both _able_ and _willing_ to meet her halfway. Perhaps he is so busy with his missions and projects that it will be years before he starts regretting he let her go.

Or he never will. He will just resign himself to the fact he can’t have everything. He will retreat into the comfort zone of quiet suffering and loneliness which he knew all his life. He didn’t even try to stop her or to negotiate when she was leaving the _Finalizer_. He asked her to leave as soon as possible.

While she, wherever she will be, in the next months and years, will always wait for him, because this is what Rey does. She waits. She hopes. She lies to herself. She creates fantasy worlds in her head. She will wait for him, scratching new marks on the wall of whatever home she will make for herself –

It wouldn’t be the first time she created an illusion of him in her mind, an illusion that was then brutally shattered. First time was in the _Supremacy_’s throne room, then on Pasaana when he attacked her, and now again? In her mind, a voice of hope whispers that Poe and Finn don’t really know Ben, nor do they know the depth of Rey’s connection to him. But maybe it’s her wishful thinking again?

In the past weeks, she even started analysing their parting conversation, and she imagined that when he offered her his name, in reality he was asking her to –

Of course he wasn’t. This is so ridiculous, so pathetic, that now she is ashamed for thinking it. A silly kid sitting in front of her AT-AT in a Resistance helmet, pretending. Scratching marks on the wall, pretending. It’s all pretending. All along, Kylo was preparing to die in the last showdown with Palpatine. He never planned to survive and have a life with her.

“I’m sorry, Rey,” Poe frowns, seeing her wince. “We shouldn’t have – what do we know, anyway? We’re not in his head, or in yours. We’re just worried about you.”

Yes, she knows they are. But at this moment, she feels sick to the heart and she wishes they had just kept silent.

* * *

The next day, just after dawn, Rey meditates alone on the shore of Nymeva Lake. It’s a misty and rather chilly morning, and the grass is damp from the dew. She needs her shawl again.

Her friends will be staying only for a few more days. When they leave, her holiday will be over. It’s time to emerge from her happy dream and look again at reality, which now, after last night’s conversation with Poe and Finn, seems somewhat dire.

Nothing has changed for Rey since she arrived here on Takodana almost a month ago. Nothing has changed, really, in the last two months since she left the _Finalizer_, in the sense that she still doesn’t know where to go from here.

She toyed with the idea of Ahch-To, to follow into Master Skywalker’s steps. The Force is strong on his island and it could be a good place to set up her Jedi school. But it’s too lonely there, both for her and her future students. This is not what she imagined for them. She wants them to learn about the Force and to have a life. The travellers with whom she talked in the last weeks in Maz’s castle told her stories of Force-sensitive people they had met or heard about. Rey has a few leads. She knows where to start looking for them.

It’s actually Rose who gave her the first tip. Rose met a Force-sensitive boy on Cantonica. His name was Temiri and he was a slave, looking after fathiers. Cantonica is part of the Alliance now, so slavery has been abolished; it’s the Supreme Leader’s first condition when starting negotiations on the Alliance membership with a new world. What is Temiri doing now? Is he even still on Cantonica? Rose doesn’t know, but Rey resolves to find out.

And then, when she’s done flying around the galaxy looking for students, she could just come back here with all of them.

After Jakku, Takodana was the first world Rey had ever visited, and it is the first one she wanted to revisit once she completed her quest for a lightsaber. Now that she’s been here for some time, she loves everything: the climate, the greenery, the atmosphere of Maz’s castle, where there are always new people to talk to, full of stories and coming from all kinds of faraway worlds. In the long term, she could build a cabin in the woods for herself, and her students could live nearby. It would be like a Jedi village, but they would also stay close to civilization, and interact with other people constantly.

This is the easiest and the best solution in a situation where she desperately wants a home, a place to call her own, but has no clear idea where that place should be. No world in the galaxy feels entirely like home, so home could be anywhere that is not desert. If not Ahch-To, she could consider Ajan Kloss, but it’s also remote and isolated, and it would remind her too much of Leia. There is of course Jakku, but Rey never wants to go back there. And that’s more or less it.

Staying on Takodana is also a good idea because Chewie will be staying here with Maz. He will help her run the business, fly around to get supplies. Rey will have two close friends nearby, the others could visit easily, and she could go and visit them. She has the ship Kylo gave her and enough money to last her a long time.

So, it’s a plan.

And yet, there is something so bitter in wanting to have a home and not really being able to think of any place as home immediately. Having to choose it in a rational way rather than being naturally pulled one way or another. Being so much at the crossroads that any road seems more or less good, and none is better than the rest.

_Because, as much as finding her own path is essential, as much as she needs and wants to do it, any home without Ben will not be a real home._

Almost two months after they had a conversation about it, Ben continues to live in space and there’s nothing Rey can do to change it. Perhaps it will just stay this way. Nothing big and dramatic will happen. No official breakup. They will write to each other, sometimes the bond will open, and one day, when it does, they will not reach for each other anymore, they will not kiss and touch. They will accept their paths have diverged for ever.

Or perhaps he is waiting for her to come back because she was the one who left? Last night, after the conversation with Poe and Finn, Rey felt she couldn’t stand it any longer and would just go back to the _Finalizer_, but this morning, sitting by the lake and slightly shivering with cold, she resolves to be stronger than that. It’s his move now. She told him what she wanted. She did say she could compromise and adapt. He needs to meet her halfway, and he isn’t doing that. She doesn’t want to love him more than he loves her, she doesn’t want to try harder than he does. He says he misses her, he cuddles with her when the bond opens, and it ends there. He seems happier, calmer, more confident now than two months ago. And yet, he isn’t making any move to be with her.

Perhaps he eventually will. It’s been only two months. Maz would say it’s nothing, and Rey accepts that logic. But in the meantime, like Finn said, she needs to live and stop waiting. She doesn’t want to wait again for someone who might never be coming.

Reaching out with her feelings, she can sense the Force surrounding her, connecting her to all the living beings and inanimate things, binding everything together. Life. Death. Warmth. Cold. Peace. Violence. And between it all, balance. When she extends her Force awareness beyond this place, beyond Takodana, beyond the star system, she finds Ben. His Force signature is strong, more peaceful than before, dark with so many tendrils of Light. She will always be able to feel him, as long as they both live. It has to be enough for now.

Perhaps it has to be enough for ever.

* * *

She spends most of the day with her friends but in the afternoon wanders off to walk alone in the forest. She thinks back to her first meeting with Kylo, when he chased her across the same forest, and she shot at him with a blaster. As she passes by the places where it happened, she remembers her fear and the hatred she felt towards the creature in a mask pursuing her. She has very different, though no less turbulent, feelings for him now.

She meditates, practises lightsaber forms on a secluded beach by the lakeshore, and at the end of the day heads back to the castle. They promised to wait for her with dinner. She hopes Chewie will also be there because she hasn’t seen him all day; he was busy helping Maz repair her ship. Chewie can’t sit around for long not fixing anything, and since he left Rey the _Falcon_, getting in return a brand-new First Order ship from Admiral Croos, he hasn’t had a chance to use his practical skills as nothing ever breaks down on that thing. It’s the same with the Nubian yacht the Resistance got from the Queen of Naboo, which they have flown to Takodana, so Chewie is starting to get fidgety.

Rey smiles to her thoughts. She is approaching the castle; the windows are all lit up as usual in the evening, which gives it a warm and welcoming air. There are people outside, resting on the grass by the lake. After a chilly morning the day turned out to be very warm.

As she rounds a corner of the path, she comes to a halt abruptly and her heart almost stops in her chest, then starts to beat very, very fast.

On the lawn just next to the castle, in a spot that was until a moment ago obscured from her vision by the trees, the _Millennium Falcon_ is parked.

* * *

The first idiotic thing that comes to her mind as she stands there, unable to move, is that Ben got rid of it. He couldn’t bear being near it. And now its new owner, by some crazy coincidence, is here, on Takodana. An explorer or a bounty hunter.

The second thought –

The ship’s hatch is closed so whoever came in it, must be around or inside the castle. She is afraid, so afraid to be disappointed. She heads inside and as she enters the bar, she spots him immediately.

Ben is sitting at a table, facing the entrance, next to Poe and Saar-Yen-Dii, with Finn and Rose opposite him. They are talking. It may not look like a gathering of the closest friends, but it doesn’t look hostile. Maybe a little tense, yet in a good way, as if everybody really wanted to make it work. Ben is wearing ordinary clothes, even if they’re black. No Supreme Leader’s tunic, belt, gloves or cloak. He is not exactly smiling, but his face is relaxed. As his eyes fall upon her, he stands up.

Rey walks towards him in a daze. The table falls silent when she stops in front of him, although the bar around them remains noisy.

“I wanted to make you a surprise,” Ben says. “They said you’d be coming back soon – so I waited –”

When she doesn’t answer at first, he shifts uncertainly.

“I should have probably let you know in advance,” he admits.

Rey smiles… and after that, she is not sure. She doesn’t know who moves first, who touches the other first, but they are kissing, her hands are in his hair, and his arms are around her. They kiss so hard they actually have to separate to catch breath, but their foreheads remain pressed together, and he smiles against her lips.

She is smiling too, and she can’t stop hugging him, as he laughs and buries his face in her hair. She forgot how big and warm he was, how completely she could lean into him, how he could envelop her.

“Took you long enough,” she whispers, although it wasn’t that long in the end. Not as long as she feared it would be.

“I was afraid it was getting too long. I’m not arrogant enough to imagine you’d wait forever.”

“I probably would.”

“I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to ever have to wait for me.”

He kisses her again and she melts into him, not caring that everyone is watching. This is the very first time her friends see her with Ben in such an intimate context. On Pasaana, as she was saying goodbye to him in front of everyone, she only dared to hug him.

And this is why they didn’t know. They thought it wouldn’t work between Rey and him, they thought Ben wouldn’t come after her, because they have never seen them together like this. They didn’t understand, and Rey wasn’t able to explain, because she can’t explain this even to herself. When she and he are this close, their bond unfurls, the Light and the Darkness embracing each other, mixing and blurring the boundaries. And not just the Force bond; there’s also this other, intense, instinctive and visceral bond that they share. It makes her heart literally grow in her chest at his slightest touch, it brings tears to her eyes and spreads warmth over her whole body. It is a physical reaction, but it’s more than that, too – a very physical symptom of something much deeper, an almost painful sensation of a total bliss, of wanting someone so much that even when they’re right in front of you and in your arms, you can never have enough.

Her friends didn’t know, and she couldn’t explain. But it wasn’t an illusion. It wasn’t pretending. It is there. It is _here_. He can feel it too, it’s written all over his face. These expressive features in which sorrow is so beautifully mixed with joy, his emotions screaming at Rey who drinks it all in and can’t stop touching him.

It’s stronger than the Force. Stronger than her fear of abandonment. Stronger than his guilt. Stronger than the issues of distrust, loneliness, fear, insecurity, and self-doubt that they both have. Stronger than the struggle with their respective identities and destinies. Stronger than the duty to the galaxy and the differences in their plans. _Stronger_.

When she glances at her friends – and she is slightly embarrassed now because the kissing, hugging and whispering has been going on for a good two minutes or so – everyone pretends to look away and be busy with conversation, but they are hiding little smiles, and it makes Rey happy. Everything is perfect –

Until Ben freezes in her arms, his whole body tensing up, and then pulls away from her slowly to look at something behind her.

Rey turns around to find Chewbacca standing on the other side of the room by the entrance. He must have been tinkering with Maz’s ship all this time because his paws are a bit dirty. He is frozen in place just like Ben, staring at him, and Ben stares back as if he saw a ghost.

Chewbacca wails so loudly and sorrowfully that for a moment the bar noise dies down and everyone glances at him, startled.

Ben looks haunted and grief-stricken. He lets go of Rey’s hand he’s been holding and clutches his left side, where the scar from the bowcaster wound is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you see this coming? Did you expect Ben to show up, or were you afraid he wouldn't?  
NB: Poe and Finn are good friends but obviously not the best relationship counsellors :-)
> 
> One of the many scenes that I really wanted to see in TROS (and didn't) was a Ben & Chewie moment. They needed that meeting, that closure, after their last confrontation. They had a history, they must have been very close when Ben was growing up, and the scene when Chewbacca shot him in TFA was laden with all the emotion created by that history. This relationship never got resolved; it's one of those things that, especially when put together, made TROS such a non-satisfactory wrap-up to the story - at least to me.
> 
> Next chapter starts with Kylo’s POV.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be the last chapter but the first draft turned out to be very long. Too much was happening and I didn’t want to shorten it because it would feel rushed (like a certain movie we all know?). So in the end, I have split it into two chapters - this is Part One of the grand finale. I hope you’ll enjoy it, and as usual I want to thank you. I was blown away by the warm, emotional and enthusiastic response to the previous chapter.

As he drops out of hyperspace in the Takodana system, Kylo feels the way he does every time when he plans something related to Rey – he starts to severely doubt the idea moments before it becomes reality. He felt that way on Pasaana when he knocked on Rey’s door after the bond disconnected them in the least opportune moment. He also felt that way on the _Finalizer_ when she was about to discover the pictures from Jakku and the pilot doll he had left in her quarters.

Now, too, the plan seemed flawless until a few minutes ago. She had told him what she wanted; he had spent two months doing the stuff he had to do; now it was time to go and get her, to tell her he had heard her and he was going to give her what she needed so that they could finally be together, happy ever after.

As Takodana’s blue and green sphere looms ahead, however, and he’s closer to Rey with every second, he begins to agonise over it.

What if she doesn’t like it that he shows up unannounced? What if her friends are still there and she doesn’t want them to witness her reunion with Kylo? What if she is simply not in the mood to talk right now, or not ready to discuss their future together yet because she is still figuring out what to do with her own life? How arrogant is it to assume she’s just sitting around waiting for him? And how difficult is it to actually tell someone in advance you’re coming to see them? Not everyone likes surprises. Perhaps a meeting like this, such an important conversation, should not happen by surprise.

Maybe she is not even there anymore? Maybe she’s left and hasn’t told him yet? They haven’t been in touch for three days.

Or maybe he’s overthinking this.

He touches down in front of the castle. The plan is to simply enter and find her or wait for her. Hopefully he can move around unrecognized; after all, he’s wearing normal clothes, and he’s coming in the _Falcon_, not in any official First Order vessel or his Tie Whisper.

It was exhilarating to pilot the _Falcon_ again, after an eternity. The old piece of junk still has a punch.

But as Kylo’s walking towards the castle’s entrance, he runs into Dameron, FN, and the engineer who wrote to him. Rose. It’s not the most pleasant meeting, but he half expected to find them here. They, however, definitely didn’t expect him. He can see the shock painted on their faces; FN, or Finn, or Dahlen Vries, if Kylo remembers correctly, _whateve_r, actually startles. Dameron is also speechless for a moment, and Rose looks extremely surprised, but then smiles.

“Master Ren!”

Kylo turns around to find Saar-Yen-Dii running towards him across the lawn. Before he can say anything or step back, she hugs him, grinning.

They have never hugged before. She has never grinned before. He doesn’t remember ever seeing such sprightliness, such careless joy in her movements and facial expression. He hugs her back.

“Look!” the girl exclaims, pulling away and unclipping the hilt of the lightsaber from her belt. She ignites it and extends her arm, proudly showing it off.

“It’s amazing,” Kylo says, sincerely moved. For a moment, he regrets he wasn’t with her when she made it. A master should be with his student at a time like that, and he just passed the girl to Rey like a hot potato.

But she doesn’t seem to mind. She extinguishes the saber and hands it to him eagerly. She wants him to check it out.

“Great craftmanship, too,” Kylo comments, examining the hilt and the mechanism. “You’re much better at it than I am. You wouldn’t leave a wire hanging on the side of it.”

Saar-Yen-Dii beams, happy.

“Tomorrow morning we will spar,” Kylo decides. “Usual training time. We’ll see what it’s worth. Does Rey spar with you?”

“Every day! I haven’t won yet, but –”

“Don’t worry. I’ll show you a few tricks that can help you beat her.”

He is overwhelmed by a strange emotion: an almost paternal sense of pride, but also joy at seeing her so happy. This girl he rescued from a brothel, at the age of fifteen, and who had seen a massacre of her family; a serious, turbulent girl who often reminded him of himself at that troubled age. He hasn’t ever made enough effort to really break through her shell. And yet this girl, who calls him master, is actually one person, besides Rey, that seems to _like him_.

Maybe Rey’s idea of a Jedi academy isn’t so bad.

“Hello there,” Dameron speaks, having had the time to recover from his initial shock. “Fancy running into you here! Care for a drink?”

“Where’s Rey?” Kylo asks.

“She’s gone to train and meditate,” Rose replies. “She will be back for dinner.”

Dinner time is in two hours or so, and he’ll have to spend them having drinks with the Resistance. This will be a long and weird afternoon.

But at least Chewbacca isn’t here. The one person Kylo cannot face.

* * *

“I’ll go get the drinks,” Finn says when they find a table in the bar. It’s been years since Kylo had drinks in a cantina like this. It’s actually quite cosy and colourful. A place where it’s easy to stay anonymous, and to his relief nobody seems to recognize him.

“Care to come with me?” Finn suggests, looking at Kylo, who is rather taken aback, but in the end doesn’t protest and follows the other man. He catches a strange exchange of looks between Finn and Dameron. They’re not planning to murder him, are they? Perhaps Rey has left and they’re afraid to tell him?

As they’re waiting for their order, Finn turns to him.

“I think I need to apologise to you. Because I… Poe and I… may have given bad advice to Rey about you.”

“Bad advice?”

“Yeah. We may have suggested she should stop waiting for you because you were never coming.”

“I see,” Kylo says after a brief silence, during which Finn fidgets slightly. “And why would you do that?”

“Why, we genuinely thought that was the case. That you were not coming. We didn’t do it to sabotage anything –”

“You thought that was the case,” Kylo repeats slowly as he looks into the distance. It’s a boisterous place; they need to make an effort to hear each other. “So you and Dameron think you know me, huh? You have me figured out so well you can give Rey advice about me?”

“Like I said, I’m sorry. That was… we obviously misjudged the situation.”

“Did she believe you?”

“I don’t know,” Finn shifts uneasily. “She did wander off alone today, and she hadn’t done that before. I think it made her sad, if nothing else. Don’t be mad,” he adds, when Kylo gives him a murderous look. “It can be fixed. She’ll be back soon…”

“I’m not mad,” Kylo stresses. “I’m completely calm. You are the one who shoots before asking questions.”

“You are the one who runs people through with a lightsaber,” Finn barks back.

The drinks arrive but neither of them moves away from the counter. They start sipping their Trandoshan ale in silence, not looking at each other.

“Rey deserves the best,” Finn says, his face clouding over. Like a petulant child, Kylo thinks.

“Rey can take care of herself. I bet she didn’t ask you for advice. Or did she?”

“She didn’t. But we are her friends, and we didn’t like the way it looked. We saw she had no idea what you were going to do or whether you two would ever be together.”

“She left me.”

“And it took you two months to come after her.”

“I’m here now. She needed time too. It wasn’t just me.”

Finn sighs.

“I will refrain from giving any more advice in the future,” he concedes wearily. “Turns out I’m shit at that. Not a good judge of character, and neither is Poe.”

Kylo is silent.

“Why did you let me go?” Finn asks suddenly.

“What?”

“On Jakku. When we were… pacifying Tuanul. You saw I wasn’t following orders, yet you let me go. Why?”

“I understood.”

“You understood?”

“Killing is not a pleasure. Not everyone can take it.”

“I was a stormtrooper. Why would you just let me be if I was useless at what I should be doing?”

“Do you think I didn’t know back then how stormtroopers were recruited? You think I didn’t realize the First Order kidnapped children?”

“I don’t get it,” Finn explodes angrily, slamming his glass against the table. “So why did you stay with them for so long?! You knew what they did was wrong. You killed an old unarmed man because he didn’t want to give you a freaking map, you had a whole village of innocent people executed, but you let a rogue stormtrooper go?”

“I don’t get it anymore, either,” Kylo admits quietly. They look briefly at each other, and something shifts in the air between them. Finn looks deflated.

“You do realize that if Rey took a ship and ran away, and is now hiding in some remote corner of the galaxy because of what you told her about me, I will have to kill you?” Kylo asks levelly.

Finn’s head darts to him, his eyes wide. Kylo snorts.

“It was a joke,” he explains.

“A joke?” the ex-trooper repeats, incredulous.

“Yeah.”

Finn shakes his head.

“I don’t know what she sees in you,” he utters, half-angry, half-amused. “Good hair can only get you so far, you know.”

“I don’t know what she sees in you as a friend. I thought getting good advice was one of the main perks of friendship?”

“Not that you would know anything about friendship,” Finn retorts.

“I’ll get there one day,” Kylo says and Finn hums in agreement. They look at each other again, gather the drinks from the counter and walk together towards the table where the others are waiting.

“I suppose we’ll have to get used to each other if you and Rey are staying together,” Finn remarks grumpily.

“Or you can still hope she will turn me down.”

“Somehow I don’t think she will.”

“So,” Dameron says to Kylo as they sit down, having scanned Kylo’s and Finn’s faces first to quickly assess the mood, “what’s new in the galaxy? They don’t let me follow the news because it’s a holiday, but I’m sure you are up to date.”

* * *

Kylo doesn’t really want to talk politics and galactic gossip just after he managed to leave it all behind for a while, but it provides an easy and neutral topic. Everyone listens and comments eagerly, and the conversation is actually bearable. Rey comes back almost two hours later, but he hasn’t really felt the time drag. Dameron is not a stupid man; Leia taught him well, Kylo must admit, even if he is slightly jealous that his mother treated Dameron as if he was her own son. Not that it’s Dameron’s fault.

When Rey enters, Kylo has no time to feel nervous because she is upon him in an instant. They kiss and kiss, she has tears in her eyes, and there’s no need to ask if she’s happy with the surprise. Last time they saw each other in the flesh was two months ago, and a month ago through the bond. Just her smell – the fresh scent he knows so well, the smell of a sunny warm day – almost reduces him to tears. He’d love to go for a walk by the lake and talk. He has so much to say to her, he has prepared it all, he has been thinking about it for weeks.

And then as he opens his eyes above Rey’s shoulder, he sees, and hears, one creature he hoped he would not need to see here because the prospect terrifies him.

Kylo knows, because Rey told him, that it was Chewbacca who picked him up from the ground on Exegol and carried him onto the _Falcon_. He knows it, but he was unconscious then, so for him now is the first time he has seen Chewbacca since –

Red and black. These are the colours he remembers, as if fire had been licking the sides of the catwalk around them. There was fire crackling from his lightsaber, and fire in his abdomen from the bowcaster wound. His scar is suddenly throbbing so hard he clutches at it and looks down at his hand, expecting to see blood.

It feels as if they were back on Starkiller and on that catwalk, just after Han Solo fell down and the Wookie shot Kylo. Only now the Wookie is standing in front of him.

Kylo walks towards him.

* * *

“I used to regret that you missed.”

Chewbacca looks down at him – he is still enormous, though less so than when Kylo was little – and wails quietly.

_I didn’t miss_.

His eyes are full of sorrow but also of something else that Kylo remembers from his childhood. At that time, he thought it was love. He always felt loved by Chewbacca. Sometimes more so than by his own father or mother.

“I’m sorry,” he says, looking up into these eyes. “I am so, so sorry.”

Chewbacca reaches out with his paw and strokes Kylo’s face, just like Han did moments after Kylo ran him through with the lightsaber. The Wookie’s paw stinks of oil and metal. Of course it does. He must have been repairing some old piece of junk as usual.

It’s the smell of Kylo’s childhood. The smell of afternoons spent helping Chewbacca and Han fix something or other on the bloody _Falcon_. The smell of the days spent trailing after the two of them, Chewbacca picking the little Ben up and letting him ride on his shoulders. He realizes he is crying only when Chewbacca wails again and pulls him into a bear hug, and there’s a wet spot on his fur after Kylo presses his face to it.

He puts his arms around the Wookie and wails too, furious, _furious_, that of all the moments, of all the places, he had to fall apart here, in some shady Mid-Rim cantina, in front of the whole Resistance, in the arms of an old friend who couldn’t bear to kill him even when Kylo did something so odious he deserved to be killed.

All that happened in his life from that day on – all the struggles, all the suffering, which in the end led to good things, to Rey, to the galaxy being free of evil, to Kylo finding his way and being able to look at himself in the mirror without hate – all this would never have happened if only on that night, on Starkiller, Chewbacca had aimed at Kylo’s head or heart, as he should have.

Instead, they’re standing here, both alive, hugging each other.

It’s been slow. Kylo took the long way, just like Leia said on Pasaana, but back then it wasn’t a done deal yet. Yoda told him a similar thing later, and even at that time Kylo wasn’t sure. It is only now, in Chewbacca’s furry and warm embrace, that he finally feels he has truly come back, perhaps not to the Light, but home.

* * *

When Rey takes him outside, he is still sobbing and sniffling. She gives him her handkerchief and hugs him. She has tears in her eyes too.

“Let me look at you properly,” she pulls away, but keeps her hand on his chest, reluctant to break contact. “You have changed.”

“Changed how?”

“You’re suntanned,” she states, delighted. “You look like someone who has been spending time outside.”

“It’s all those world visits…”

“It is doing you good.”

They both fall silent, still reeling from the emotion of the encounter.

“There’s a little beach a few kilometres from here,” Rey suggests. “We could go there to be alone and talk.”

“It’s getting dark. No point in walking. I have a speeder on the _Falcon_.”

She lets him drive and clings to his back, resting her head between his shoulder blades and snaking her arms around him. It’s dark already but the Force guides him as he manoeuvres through the forest. They can go fast, and she seems to be enjoying the speed, the wind, and their physical proximity. It feels cosy, almost… domestic. Familial.

Once they reach the nice little spot on the lakeshore, with a magnificent view of the castle – now fully illuminated – Kylo gets the blankets from the speeder. The air is very mild tonight but in case Rey gets cold later on, he is prepared. She’s wearing the shawl he got her months ago on the _Finalizer_.

“Rey,” he starts as they sit down on the blanket spread on the grass. She is watching the lake, a smile on her lips. She looks so peaceful and happy he pauses, wishing to let her be. But they need to talk.

She turns her head to look at him.

“Later, Ben.”

Tonight, when she entered the cantina and he rose to greet her, she reached for him first. In fact, Rey did almost everything first, from the very beginning. She held her hand out first on Ahch-To. She came to him on the _Supremacy_. She came after him on Pasaana and insisted until he let her in. She kissed him first. She came to the _Finalizer_ to be with him. After the war, she started thinking and talking about their future together first. But this time, finally, he will do the coming after, and the kissing, and the talking.

He leans towards her, presses his lips to hers and pushes her down onto the blanket. It’s been so long since he laid on top of her like this, feeling her body melt into him and respond. Rey rolls them over onto their sides and swings her leg over his thigh. She slides both hands under his top and hungrily explores the planes of his chest and abdomen. Then she slips her hand into his trousers, palming him through his underwear.

“Get out of these clothes, Ben,” she whispers.

He hasn’t exactly planned this – but now that they have the blankets –

He removes all his garments as quickly as possible, and when he turns around to her, she’s just getting rid of her own clothes. She pulls him back down and wraps her hand around his length.

Rey is so needy that she is trembling. It’s been more than two months. Her skin reacts to him, exploding in goosebumps. She kisses him hard, tugs at his hair, rakes the nails across his back, and he loves the mix of sensations. When he palms her breast, she makes a strained, whiny sound that he knows well. On the _Finalizer_, if they happened to spend the whole day with other people, without many opportunities to caress each other, in the evening they were both desperate to touch, and she used to sound like this.

She’s not gentle, or at least not for long. Her fingers slide between his legs, cupping and fondling him, but when she starts stroking him again, it’s with firm movements, down to his base, and she picks up the pace. She likes to touch him like this. Sometimes, she likes to be fully in control.

He pulls her closer and parts her legs with his knee. There is no foreplay – unless this is foreplay, but it’s too rough, too desperate. She practically pushes herself onto his hand, so he shoves two fingers inside her at once. It startles her; she arches against him and cries out.

“You want me to stop?” he whispers.

“No,” she jerks her hips forward, wrapping one arm around his neck and continuing to stroke him with her other hand.

It’s good, oh so good. She does it so well, and, to reward her, he curls his fingers and grazes the little spongy spot inside her, relishing in her wetness. It always works. It drives her mad. She screams and rocks her hips again, searching even more friction, taking as much pleasure as she can. He loves that in Rey: this unabashed pursuit of joy, the limitless enthusiasm and appetite for life, in sex as in other things.

So he does the same. He gives in to her and closes his eyes as they kiss. He loves hearing her moan, so wanton, so _free_. Someone might be passing by and they would hear her, but he could always wave his hand and Force them to forget it –

“That was a darksider’s thought!” she pants.

“It was. You like listening in on those?”

“Just a little harder, Kylo, please…”

“Oh, is it Kylo now? Because it’s been Ben a lot recently. You do like your Kylo in bed, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she hisses and bites his lips. She starts trembling and he lets go, fucking into her hand, thrusting his fingers into her, until he can feel her walls contract and pulse, warm liquid spurting out of her. This happens every time he makes her come with his fingers deep inside her. They discovered it together. It’s so hot it makes him lose his mind, and he comes into her hand, onto her stomach and her breasts, while she’s still moaning loudly, covering his face with sloppy kisses.

Sometime later she opens her eyes and exhales shakily.

“The fastest orgasm of my life,” she chuckles.

So it was. How long? Two minutes? He has never made her come so fast yet. Not that he lasted any longer.

“Like a couple of teenagers,” Kylo murmurs. Nothing tonight is going the way he planned. He wasn’t supposed to spend hours having drinks with the bloody Resistance in a cantina, he wasn’t supposed to run into Chewbacca and break out in tears, he and Rey weren’t supposed to start their reunion by having sex, and once they did, it wasn’t supposed to be so rough and frantic. And yet the way it all happened, it feels good. All of it.

Rey turns onto her back and grows still, spread on the blanket, her body covered with the traces of his pleasure, her thighs glistening with her own slick and sweat. In the faint starlight, she looks like a work of art. He wishes he could draw her now.

He pulls another blanket on top of them, settles next to her and props himself up on his elbow, watching her. Rey wraps her arms loosely around his neck and plays with strands of his hair.

“Scavenger,” he whispers, stroking her face. This word, which he used to think ugly, has become an endearment. He has called her that many a time in moments of tenderness.

“Supreme Leader,” she whispers back. That’s the game. He calls her this, she responds with that, and it is like a love confession.

“You’re beautiful,” Kylo says quietly. He doesn’t often tell her compliments. He finds them banal and pale in comparison to the depth of his feelings. But she is beautiful and she should hear it.

“I missed you, Rey.”

She looks up at him anxiously.

“You didn’t just come to say hello, did you?” she asks. “And then you’ll go away again?”

“No. Of course not. I knew we should have talked before making out.”

She smiles.

“That’s all I needed to know for now. You can kiss me again. We’ll talk later.”

And he kisses her, because there is nothing more important than that. It’s not the end of their lovemaking; they’ve just satisfied the deepest hunger, but the night is young. He will take her again, and again, he will give her more pleasure, and they will take their time. But for now, it feels blissful just to enjoy the lazy afterglow, wrapped in blankets on the grass, with the night forest noises around them.

They have hardly talked so far. Not a word has been said of the purpose of his visit nor of the future, yet it feels like they’ve been having this conversation all along, just not with words.

“Do you still have nightmares, Rey?”

“Sometimes,” she sighs, pensive. “Not so often anymore. Maybe when I sensed you were at peace, I stopped being so afraid for you. I stopped feeling like I could wake up any moment in a different reality where you would be dead.”

“I want to apologise, Rey.”

“For what?” she frowns. “For my bad dreams?”

“For saying I should have died.”

Now she’s silent and from the way she looks at him he knows he found what was ailing her.

“You saved me, healed me, and I kept saying I didn’t deserve to live. I made it sound as if your gift was worthless, because I thought my life was. I think I actually regretted, in some way, that you brought me back. But no more. I am glad to be alive now, Rey. I really am.”

He kisses her forehead.

“You accused me of wanting to leave you alone,” he says. “I may have been stupid and selfish, but that I would never do. Do you understand?”

“Well, if you had died, you would have,” she says sullenly.

“No, Rey,” Kylo tilts her chin up to make her look at him.

“The bond we have is stronger than that. One day you or I will become one with the Force, and chances are I will go first because I’m older. But it doesn’t mean you will be left alone.”

“No one’s ever really gone?” she asks hopefully.

“I saw my grandfather and my uncle as if they were next to me in the flesh. I saw master Yoda. And you think I would leave you alone? If I die first, I will be back before you have time to miss me. I will always be with you. As a Force ghost, as a constant presence at the other end of the bond, until you become one with the Force yourself and we can be together for ever. Do you understand, Rey? When I said you are not alone, I meant it.”

“Force ghosts can touch,” Rey whispers. “So maybe… maybe, you know, it would just be almost the same?”

“With some blue glow as a bonus. But there’s no point in talking about it because it won’t happen for many, many years.”

He understands her fear of loneliness at a deep, visceral level. But for him, their Force bond transcends life and death. It always hums at the back of his mind, even when she’s not with him, and he’s sure it would continue to do so if one of them were to pass. It is too strong to go quiet, too strong to break. Perhaps, even, he would not be able to fully pass into the Force until she joined him. Perhaps, if one of them were to leave too early, the other could pull them back.

She literally did. She dragged him back to life.

“Before meeting you, I was so lonely I didn’t even realize it anymore, nor expected anything else. Months could pass without anyone touching me outside of combat or a med bay. I felt barely human. But now, neither of us will ever be alone again.”

She listens carefully, searches his face and apparently what she finds satisfies her because she presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

“I should thank you. You reminded me what was important. I am doing much better now.”

“I have fewer nightmares, but I still think of Exegol a lot,” Rey confesses. “Don’t you?”

Exegol was harder on her than on him. He lost his fight against Palpatine, he was overpowered and spent the rest of the time in the ice fortress unconscious, slowly dying from the wound Rey had inflicted on him. She fought Palpatine for much longer, alone, and then she fought hundreds of Sith troopers, and then decided to die by his side, and then saved him and dragged him out of there…

He can only imagine how dark her memories must be.

Now, two months later, Exegol seems no worse to Kylo than many other terrible past moments. Luke with a lightsaber above him. Luke’s temple burning. Snoke’s training, torture and humiliation, Snoke’s grip on his mind. The voices that lived in Kylo’s head. Han Solo’s death.

Exegol is actually less bad because on Exegol, at least, Kylo was a good guy. Not a murderer of innocent people. But it would be insensitive to tell Rey that his nightmares are about worse things than Exegol, the things he has done to others and the things that have been done to him. He has fewer nightmares now anyway. They have both started to heal from their respective wounds and horrors, albeit separately. Maybe this time apart was for the best.

“I want to discuss some ideas with you.”

“Sounds very formal,” Rey laughs but he reads apprehension in her eyes. She is wondering what he is going to suggest. Will it be less than she hopes for? Will she be disappointed again?

“I grew up on Chandrila,” Kylo says and she relaxes a little, clearly expecting a story. But that’s not what it’s going to be. “It’s a very pretty, pleasant world. It has seas – you would love them, calm seas, not like on Kef Bir – and green rolling hills, lakes and cities, everything. There is enough civilization but also enough wilderness to feel free.”

She still doesn’t understand. She is looking at him keenly, probably wondering where he is going with this.

“It’s in the Core, too. It has been barely affected by the war. I was thinking it could be a good place to live for you and me.”

Only now does it click, and he can see the realization dawn on her as she opens her eyes wide.

“A home?” she stutters.

“Yes. I believe you would like Chandrila, and of course it’s a special place for me. Besides, it’s central so it’s practical for my work. The First Order could move its headquarters there. And you could set up your Jedi academy, too.”

“I can’t believe you’ve already thought about an actual place,” she says, her eyes full of wonder.

“It’s just a suggestion. We can think of others.”

“We don’t need to talk about other places,” Rey sits up and kisses him. She’s so excited she practically trembles but tries to hide it. Maybe she doesn’t yet fully believe it. “I love the idea of us living together on your home world!”

“I have made some inquiries,” Kylo resumes hesitatingly. He doesn’t want her to feel pressurized into it, or rather, he doesn’t want to give her the impression he has taken the decision already, on his own. “There are a few patches of land for sale close to Hanna City, the capital. It’s a green and quiet area, not far from the sea. It would be a perfect location. The Order could set up its offices in Hanna City. If you like the idea, we could go and see the places this week.”

“This week?” Rey echoes, looking stunned.

“I took a week off. We could fly over to Chandrila.”

“A week? You have a whole week off?”

“You said I should delegate more to people I trust. We can have a week’s holiday. What do you say?”

She is gaping at him, incredulous. It would be funny if it wasn’t so heart-breaking: he must have been very negligent if she finds it so incredible that he could choose to spend a week with her after two months of not seeing each other.

“We would go to visit the actual places where our house could be?” she repeats, and he wonders how many more confirmations it will take for her to actually believe it.

“Yes. But if you like it and we get the land, it will still take a few months before the house is ready, Rey. We will need special security features, a state-of-the-art comms system, and so on. And we need to plan for your Jedi school.”

“But wait.” There’s visibly something she can’t get her head around. “That’s it? If we like it, you will just… up and buy it?”

“Yes,” Kylo confirms. “Of course. What else?”

She looks at him wide-eyed, then laughs and shakes her head.

“I have never given it any thought, but the fact is you’re rich,” she states.

“I have never given it any thought either, or at least not until recently. But, yes. And I haven’t had many opportunities to spend credits in the last years.”

He smiles to her.

“So, is it a good plan?”

Through the bond, her happiness burns so bright it makes him almost ashamed he hadn’t come up with this earlier. Why couldn’t he think of it two months ago? Why couldn’t he spare them this sad separation?

“In the next months, before all the post-war rebuilding ends, I’ll be still flying around quite a lot. During that time we could rent a place on Chandrila, to supervise the house construction, or stay in my family property on Naboo. It’s just that I will be coming and going, but by the time the house is ready this will change. Or, if you prefer, in the meantime you could stay here on Takodana, and I’ll visit when I can.”

“You have thought about everything, haven’t you?” Rey smiles, looking for his hand between the blanket folds.

“I am trying to do better, Rey. I’m sorry I was so slow.”

“I could travel with you, you know,” she offers. “I’m also going to fly around looking for students in the next months. I could adapt my itinerary to your schedule, it’s easy for me. So that we can spend more time together.”

“Would you like that? Would you come again to the _Finalizer_?”

“I liked living there. I just didn’t want to stay there forever. By the way… can we take my Jakku pictures and my doll to our house on Chandrila?”

“We can take whatever you want. And we can choose any kind of house you want, and anything for the house.”

She looks sad at that.

“I wouldn’t know what to choose. I don’t know anything about these things.”

“I don’t know anything either. I’ve never owned a house. We will learn. We will hire architects and decorators. How do you think I had your quarters on the _Finalizer_ prepared?”

“I knew you would come. I knew it would all end well,” she says suddenly, her voice thick with emotion, but he knows it’s not entirely true. It’s just her euphoria speaking. He felt her deep sadness and anxiety when she was leaving two months ago, and he also felt it through the bond during the two months of separation. Her Light burnt low. She wasn’t sure he was coming.

Neither was he. At the time she left, he was in a black hole of his own making, spiralling down, despite the victory, despite being alive. He felt empty. He had nothing to offer her. She had to leave for him to realise what he lost.

And for the first time, he didn’t accept it. He didn’t resign himself to suffering, didn’t embrace loneliness and rejection, didn’t add Rey to the list of people who failed him or whom he failed, people for whom he wasn’t good enough and who abandoned him. He didn’t do all that, although it was tempting, because it was the easiest thing to do, a path well-travelled.

There is more he has to tell her. He’s been waiting to do that for over a month; last time, the bond dissolved too soon, and the Force hasn’t connected them again. It’s not an easy story to tell, and certainly not one to tell in writing. He resolves to do it tonight, but he puts it off again because just now Rey is humming to herself distractedly, deep in thought over the new future he has promised her, a new home, a new world, which she is eager to discover. He doesn’t want to disturb her happy thoughts, so for a while he remains silent, holding her, enjoying the warmth.

“I don’t want to go back yet… but I’m hungry,” Rey admits, peering at him cautiously. Early in their relationship, he teased her once about her food obsession – once and no more, because he quickly realized where it came from and never joked about it again – so she’s probably trying not to focus on food too much, but she can’t help herself any longer.

“All right. I’ll go hunting then.”

That elicits a peal of laughter from her.

“Please do, naked and with your lightsaber. I want to see this.”

Kylo sighs. He has anticipated that. He knows his girl by now, and he certainly doesn’t want to go back yet, not after all the drama. He’s not up to seeing the Resistance and Chewie again tonight. Tomorrow, he will.

“I have some First Order ration packs and water. I’ll get them from the speeder.”

When he comes back with the food, she’s waiting, wrapped in her blanket, grinning.

“I love it when you feed me,” she announces as she opens the boxes, takes the simple snacks out and bites into them as excitedly as if it was a gourmet dinner prepared by Kylo’s chef on the _Finalizer_, and as greedily as if she hadn’t eaten for a few days.

He shakes his head as he watches her eat. Yeah, he loves feeding her too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how does Ben’s idea of a house on Chandrila, between the sea and the rolling hills, sound? I personally like it. I have a feeling the Resistance will be visiting.
> 
> If you are now thinking “it could end here and it would be good enough”, it’s because you don’t know yet what is coming in the next chapter! Stay with me. I promise it will be worth it.


	22. Chapter 22

It happened two weeks after Rey left. Kylo was at the bottom of the pit, working himself to exhaustion from dawn till late into the night, unable to sleep in his lonely cold bed, and bombarded by external crises. Everyone demanded the death of the clones whom he had saved, while he felt proud of it because it was the right thing to do and, for once in his life, he did it.

If that was the sweet taste of victory, it would have been easier to lose and get killed.

When he heard the voice calling his name, he knew he must have fallen asleep by his desk over the plans of Nova because that voice could not speak to him anywhere outside of a dream.

“Hello, Ben.”

“Dad.”

Turning around on his chair, he found Han Solo sitting on the sofa, one arm draped over its back, one leg loosely crossed over the other.

“For months, I both feared and wanted to dream of you,” Kylo said, standing up and walking to the sofa. He sat on the other end of it and turned towards his father. “Yet it never happened. Why now?”

“If it’s a dream, why aren’t you waking up?” Han retorted playfully. “Whenever I dreamt and realized I was dreaming, I always woke up.”

“So we might not have much time. Better get down to it. Listen, I –”

Han waved his hand.

“I know, I know. You regret it. There is no need to elaborate on that. I saw it in your eyes back then. If there is one thing I know, it’s this.”

“Of course you do. It’s my dream, so you’re in my mind, after all. You’re not really here.”

Han chuckled.

“So rational, on top of all those unruly emotions,” he remarked. “You take after your mother in this.”

“Is it wrong,” Kylo asked, “that even though I killed so many other people, I feel I could let it go – I feel I could make up for it eventually, but this one thing, this… what I did to you – nothing can ever atone for it. Is it wrong to feel that? Because, objectively, you’re only one person. I shouldn’t consider other lives that I took as less important just because you’re my father. So why is it so hard to forgive myself for that, for you?”

Han nodded.

“Because forgiving ourselves for hurting people we love is the hardest, kid,” he said. “Hurting other people is much easier, as heartless as it may sound.”

They looked at each other in silence for a moment.

“If it makes you feel better,” Han resumed, running his hand through his hair, “I knew, when I was going to Starkiller, and when I stepped onto that catwalk, that I might not walk out of there alive. I knew Snoke had poisoned your mind and terrorised you. Because what would have happened if you hadn’t killed me? He would have killed you.”

“Probably.”

“And if you had gone with me to the Resistance, you wouldn’t have received a warm welcome, either. I’m not saying they would have shot you on sight, but close.”

Kylo snorted.

“So what are you saying? That killing you was my only option?”

“No. There weren’t any good options.”

“But it wasn’t a rational choice,” Kylo argued. “I wasn’t reasoning like that. It was all… extremely emotional.”

“Yeah,” Han agreed. “And it wasn’t just Snoke, was it? It was also how things were between you and me. I regret that.”

“Regret what? Not knowing how to handle me when I was little? Dumping me on Luke?”

“That too. But mostly, I regret not coming after you when you fled to Snoke. None of us did. Not me, not your mother, not Luke. We just left you there. For years, nobody came. So when I finally did come, I knew it might be too late.”

“What difference would it make if you had come earlier? Snoke would have killed you.”

Han shrugged.

“No doubt. But my death wouldn’t be on you, and chances are it would have brought you back to your senses. Also, perhaps I wasn’t a match for Snoke, but Luke was. He could have done something.”

“Luke thought I was lost long before that. That’s why he tried to kill me. And he was too ashamed to confess it to you, so he ran and hid.”

“I would have kicked his ass if I knew, Jedi or not. I may have been a bad father but not _that_ bad.”

Did anyone ever seriously think of coming earlier, Kylo wondered. Did Leia and Han consider it? Did they disagree about that, and it contributed to their separation?

But in the end, there was no use blaming them.

“I made my own choices,” he said. “What you’re saying here is my own mind trying to absolve me, which is pathetic.”

“Yes, you made your choices. But I knew I had failed you. We all did. I knew I might pay for it.”

“It seems in our family everyone constantly makes mistakes and pays for them, creating fantastic opportunities for other family members to make their own mistakes, for which they’ll need to pay in their turn,” Kylo remarked. “And it goes on and on, from one generation to another. That’s the definition of legacy, I guess.”

Han laughed.

“You always had a good sense of humour,” he murmured. “Even as a kid.”

“So you came to tell me to stop torturing myself and start living?”

“You’ve already heard that a few times, from people and ghosts.”

“To go get my girl, then? That’s the kind of advice I’d expect from you.”

Han grinned.

“You’re more of a son of mine than you care to admit, Ben. I’m confident you’ll go get your girl when the time comes. You’d be crazy if you didn’t. Just remember, getting them seems hard, but keeping them is much harder.”

“Like with wars. At first, winning seems difficult, but once you win, it turns out the real challenges come after that.”

Han reached out and patted Kylo’s hand.

“I wish we could have had more of these conversations, father to son, around a flask of Corellian whisky,” he admitted. “I wish I could know you as a man. But we have this, at least. When I was alive, we didn’t talk at all for years.”

It was perhaps these words – the image of what might have been – or the touch of his father’s hand that turned out to be the breaking point. Kylo moved forward on the sofa and the next thing he knew, they were in each other’s arms, hugging. His father smelled of leather and the outdoors, as usual.

“I’m sorry,” Kylo whispered.

“It’s all right, kid. It will be all right.”

“I don’t know if it will be. I don’t know if I can ever get over it. And now even Rey has left me, and I have nobody –”

“Now, this is not true,” Han murmured above him, patting his back. “Rey loves you, and there are other people who care about you. You will see. Maybe you don’t give them enough consideration.”

“What people? The whole galaxy is on my back at the moment.”

“There is a good friend who will visit you very soon. And once he comes, you can drink with him to your old man, who for once is giving you good advice.”

That sounded strangely specific for a dream. Surprised, Kylo extricated himself from Han’s arms to look at him and ask questions –

But nobody was there anymore, and he was sitting on the sofa alone, staring into space, his body still warm from his father’s embrace.

* * *

“How strange,” Rey whispers when he tells her the story by the lake, in the dark, with the sounds of crickets in the background. She has shed tears and is now clutching sadly an unfinished dessert bar. Not many things can distract Rey from food. “How wonderful, too. That helped you?”

“It did.”

“Perhaps you needed such a conversation with your father in your mind to forgive yourself and move on.”

“Actually, I’m not so sure it was in my mind,” Kylo says slowly. “At the time, I did think it was a dream. What else could it be? But later, something strange happened.”

“What? What did?”

She will think he’s mad. He is half sure of it himself.

“This old friend my father announced – he did come. Two days later, a ship shot out of hyperspace next to the _Finalizer_ and someone hailed us to ask for a private meeting with me.”

* * *

When he heard who was asking for the meeting, he could not believe it. He didn’t even know that man was still alive.

And how could it be a coincidence? How could that person just suddenly decide to reconnect with Kylo two days after Han’s mysterious visit?

Kylo still doesn’t have an answer to this.

He was so incredulous he went to the _Finalizer_’s hangar bay to see the visitor with his own eyes. When the hatch of the expensive-looking, sleek shuttle opened and the man emerged, Kylo was so stunned – and so moved – he found himself unable to speak a word.

The visitor, on the other hand, seemed perfectly composed.

As he always did.

“Hello, Ben,” Lando Calrissian said, coming down the ramp and extending his hand to Kylo in an easy-going, good-humoured way. “Gosh, you look exhausted. You could do with a drink. And so could I. Will you lead the way?”

He shook Kylo’s hand and passed by without waiting for a reply. Kylo opened his mouth, closed it again, then turned around and followed him.

* * *

“I am happy to see you, Ben,” Lando said, sitting on the same sofa Han occupied two days before – in a dream – in Kylo’s quarters.

Normally Kylo would expect a slightly mocking pose, an arrogant bravado of the same kind his father used to sport. Han and Lando, two charming scoundrels. But Lando seemed serious – for once, because Kylo didn’t remember him ever being serious during the visits Lando had paid them in Kylo’s childhood – and looked at him with kind, curious eyes.

“I can’t say I expected to ever see you again,” Kylo replied truthfully.

“Did you not? I, for my part, always hoped I would. I worked with your mother. I was one of the secret sponsors of the Resistance, of course. I don’t think I’m giving away any secrets here. You must have guessed anyway.”

“Of course you were. I’m not surprised.”

“I suppose we’re all on the same side now, aren’t we?”

“I guess so.”

“Good,” Lando said, pulling a bottle of Corellian whisky from the folds of his cape. “Then let’s drink to the old times and talk about the new ones, because it seems to me you have interesting stories to tell. There’s something going on in that superweapon space station you captured. I don’t think you’re planning to fire it on the worlds whose media criticise you for saving the clones, so what exactly are you doing there?”

* * *

“I do know Lando Calrissian!” Rey exclaims. “He was meeting up with Leia… I knew he was helping the Resistance. And she did tell me a little about his connection to your family.”

“He’s become incredibly rich. He has made his fortune quietly, but now he’s the owner of the Kuat shipyards. He also holds shares in many megacorporations. He almost single-handedly kept the Resistance alive for a year after Crait. And he helped my mother strike all these alliances for me in the months before Exegol, although he always worked behind the scenes. He has connections everywhere.”

“That’s how he found out about Nova?”

“I suppose. People like this have their spies.”

“So he came to you because of that?”

“Yes,” Kylo says. “He quickly understood that Nova could be my big trust-winning ticket. My chance to do something good. And he came to offer his help.”

“As your adviser?”

“That too. He has a knack for business, a sixth sense for what might be the next big thing that grabs people’s imagination. In a way, he is a visionary, a romantic. He stayed with us for days, reviewing the plans, firing off ideas, discussing specific projects with my team. But mainly, he came as an investor. He poured millions of credits into Nova. And he made it public, too, just a few days after I published the announcement. Plenty of other corporations followed suit.”

“Will he stick around to help you?”

“I offered him a position on the Nova management board. He accepted.”

“That’s great. But in the end, did you two raise a drink to your father?”

* * *

“Why are you doing this?” Kylo asked Lando after they spent two hours sipping whisky and poring over Nova plans. “Out of sentiment for the good old times?”

“Would that be so strange?”

“Why now? It’s been years since we last talked.”

“But it’s been only months since I talked to your mother, Ben. And years since I promised her that if ever anything happened to her and you needed someone to look after you, I would.”

“When did she make you promise that? When I was little?”

“No,” Lando shook his head. “After you went to Snoke, and she and Han split up. She was at the helm of the Resistance, fighting the First Order. It was dangerous. The future was uncertain, and your father had disappeared down the black hole of smuggling. She asked me to help you if you ever came back to your senses and needed help, and she wasn’t there anymore. I guess this time is now.”

“You know what I did to my father?”

“Of course I know. Leia told me.”

He looked at Kylo earnestly and poured them another glass of whisky.

“You should have come to me after what happened at Luke’s,” he said, his eyes full of sorrow. For the first time, Kylo realised Lando was getting older. “Instead of going to Snoke. I wouldn’t have asked you stupid questions or called your parents. I would have let you lie low, given you a room, credits, or a ship, so you could disappear for some time. I’m still keeping that blaster I got for you when you were young, in case you need it. You’re the son of two of my best friends. I thought of you as family.”

Kylo found himself unable to reply.

“Nobody is alone, Ben,” Lando said, resting his hand on Kylo’s shoulder. “Or, at least, you aren’t.”

* * *

“He’s right,” Rey murmurs, crawling closer to him. “There are people who care about you. Saar-Yen-Dii, and Chewie. And me, of course.”

Kylo shakes his head.

“Even if it’s true, it’s so difficult for me to believe it.”

“I know what you mean,” she says. The trauma of loneliness is one of the many things they share. Rey has friends now and Kylo realizes that, just like him, she must be still finding it unreal: to suddenly have people who care about her, when for so long she had nobody.

He thought their situations were the same, but perhaps they weren’t. Perhaps he had people who cared about him all along, only he didn’t look closely enough.

“But what about your father?”

“I don’t know. He can’t be a Force Ghost, so he can’t visit me. But I couldn’t have guessed Lando was coming to see me. The coincidence is too strange.”

“Maybe there is a different way to come back,” Rey suggests. “Not as a Force Ghost. A way we don’t know yet.”

Kylo has no idea. But he would like to believe his father was really there. When his mother appears to him as a Force Ghost – he is sure she will, one day – he will ask her about it.

Dream, hallucination or apparition, it worked. Nothing changed, but everything changed. He didn’t regret killing his father any less. It didn’t make him any less sad. But two days after Lando left the _Finalizer,_ Kylo healed his crystal and rebuilt his lightsaber. And a few days after that, he had the Nova announcement published.

Other things happened, too. During one of his world visits, by pure chance he saved tens of lives when an unstable building collapsed at an industrial site damaged in one of Palpatine’s strikes, and Kylo caught the falling debris with the Force literally a few metres above people’s heads. After that, he often helped with rebuilding works, labouring side by side with manual workers, most of whom had no idea of his past. Beyond a workout in the open air, it gave him a simple sense of achievement without the anxiety attached to more ambitious endeavours.

The post-war galactic government was also coming on quite well, all the major players of the Alliance slowly reaching an agreement. It would be a Council, just like Kylo wanted, though somewhat bigger, with a few permanent members and many rotating ones. The Council would sit on top of a robust, interconnected system of regional and local governments covering all levels of the galaxy, from sectors down to individual worlds. In the future, the enhanced trade system, with new routes, hyperspace lanes, and harmonised legislation, would help reinforce connections between the different parts of the galaxy.

Everything was slowly getting on track. He worked day and night for two months, until the day came when things were stable enough to leave them to people he trusted, and step back for a short while. He made the arrangements, packed his things onto the _Falcon_, and flew across the galaxy to Takodana.

* * *

“But will you have any time left to teach at my Jedi academy?” Rey asks anxiously after he reports all the progress in his work.

“I suppose I could teach combat,” Kylo agrees. That could actually be fun, to spar with other Force users. It could be good training for him.

“You have much more to teach than combat,” Rey insists. “I need you to teach them about the Darkness. To show them how to walk the line, how to use it when needed but keep it at bay.”

Could he do that? Not that he always knows how to walk the line. But he has got better at it.

“I want to teach them that Darkness is part of them,” Rey says. “They shouldn’t reject it. They need to learn to control it, resist it when necessary, so that it doesn’t consume them. You can show them how.”

“So we’re starting a new Jedi Order?” Kylo asks. A year ago, he would have hated the idea. Now, not so much anymore. In any case, he’ll certainly be better at teaching students how to control the Darkness than his uncle was. “At least let’s not use the Jedi word. We want to build something new.”

“We don’t have to use it. We can talk about Force users. But we can also use the old word with a new meaning. We can make it into something different.”

“Master Yoda did tell me we would need to make new rules.”

“Yes,” Rey brightens up. “I have given it a lot of thought. I think we should write a new code. Something between the Jedi and the Sith code.”

“You want to use elements of the Sith code?”

“I want to tell my students they’re entitled to both peace and passion. Emotion and serenity. Knowledge and strength. They are to seek balance between extremes, a middle ground between conflicting feelings and thoughts. There is no good and bad side of the Force. How they reach for it may change depending on the situation and throughout their life. It’s how they use it that defines them. You have taught me that.”

She plays with the ends of her hair, deep in thought, then adds:

“And I don’t want them to become elite warriors. We are studying the Force to serve the galaxy, not to fight wars. We could use it in engineering, construction, we could help find safer routes through hyperspace, limit the impact of natural disasters, heal people. We should use the Force to make lives better, not to fight and destroy but to build. These are your own words. You wrote me that just days ago.”

There is hope and determination in her voice, and he can’t take his eyes off her. She keeps saying she learnt things from him. For his part, he hasn’t quite managed to learn her optimism – _because there will be more fighting, there always is, for example against criminal syndicates he has as good as declared war on_ _in a public statement _– but he did feel some of that enthusiasm in the past months, when he knew he was doing good things, and they worked.

“I never wanted to fight,” Rey says. “I was happy when you opened the peace talks, because I hated the war. And yet when I trained as a Jedi, I always thought I’d be using my skills in battle. Maybe even against you. Now I want to learn everything there is to learn about all the other uses of the Force. I want to be a powerful Force user who is _not_ first and foremost a warrior.”

She looks up at him and smiles.

“And you actually discovered how to do that before me,” she says. “Who would have thought that? Who would have expected Kylo Ren to use his powers and influence in such a peaceful way? There is still so much we don’t know about the Force. We have only begun to discover how we can use it to do good.”

“Yes,” Kylo admits. “And that gives me hope.”

Rey’s eyes dart to him.

“Hope!” she repeats. “This is the first time I have ever heard you say that. You said you admired hope in me, but you were never hopeful yourself. It always saddened me. You have truly changed. Did your father’s visit start this?”

“No. You started it.”

“When I left?”

“You could say that. But no. Long before that. When you came to me on Pasaana and put your arms around me, and I reacted like a brute, then regretted it. Everything started then.”

“No,” Rey smiles. “Everything started long before that. Here on Takodana, in this forest.”

* * *

She rises on her knees and the blanket opens a little, revealing her naked body. Kylo leans forward, but before he reaches for her, Rey moves towards him and straddles him. In an instant, her warm arms are around his neck and her mouth is on his.

“Ben,” she whispers between one kiss and another.

He’s hard, she can feel his need, and she slowly slides onto him. So slowly that in the end he snarls, grabs her by the neck and pulls her down roughly to bury himself in her fully.

Rey closes her eyes, tilts her head back and moans. He licks at the hollow of her throat, and it spurs her to start rolling her hips. She doesn’t give him any time to breathe as he is still reeling from the sharp pleasure of having her clench around him. She’s tight, tighter than he remembers, or maybe it’s just impossible to remember accurately a pleasure that is so intense.

“_You are_ _hot inside me_,” she pants, stopping for a moment and resting her forehead against his. He shifts so as to sit more comfortably – he has nothing to lean against and help him maintain his balance as she bounces on him relentlessly.

“Slow down, Rey,” he croaks when it’s becoming too much, his muscles tingling, his breath catching.

“No,” she hisses and slams against him even harder. It’s laboured; her body glistens with sweat and slaps against him wetly as she chases her release. Sometimes, when the emotion between them gets so strong and their movements so frantic, the climax doesn’t come easily to her, so he slides his hand between them, brushing two fingers against the spot he hasn’t caressed properly tonight yet. Rey cries out, her body arching, her thighs trembling from the effort as she rises above him and slides back down, while he thrusts upwards to match her movements.

He is so focused on her pleasure that he hardly notices when the pressure building in the pit of his belly suddenly peaks and he is coming. He pulls her down onto him, perhaps a touch too hard, because Rey hisses and shoves him in the chest. Kylo falls back onto the ground, spread underneath her, as she continues to thrust her hips wildly, all the while holding his hand between her legs. A few more seconds and she comes too, moaning and rubbing herself against his body as if the Supreme Leader of the First Order was her pleasure tool.

It’s an amazing show. Soon Rey falls onto his chest in a heap, panting, and Kylo covers the back of her head with his palm.

“I told you to slow down,” he murmurs. “You savage thing.”

Rey starts shaking and for a second he wonders if she is all right before he realizes she’s laughing.

“Sorry,” she says but it’s abundantly clear she’s not sorry at all.

He pushes her off him so that she lands on her side on the ground, next to him, and he pulls himself up on his elbow, looming above her.

“Wild scavenger,” he hisses. “I’ll fuck you all night in your room, on the bed and on every other piece of furniture.”

“I have a desk,” Rey confesses, her eyes gleaming with mischief.

“I’ll bend you over that desk and fuck you raw,” Kylo promises, biting her neck and squeezing her breast so hard she squirms. “Then I’ll flip you over, lay you flat on your back, your legs on my shoulders, and fuck you again so deep you’ll be sore all day tomorrow. You won’t be able to walk.”

“I’m sore already,” she laughs, putting her hands into his hair and pulling his head down so that he is hovering just above her mouth.

“Me too,” Kylo admits.

“I missed your hair,” she whispers.

“I missed you touching my hair,” he mutters.

He leans down, his arms around her head, and closes his eyes as she caresses his hair and presses her open mouth to his lips.

They kiss slowly. It’s delicious and sensual, and Rey snuggles into him, wet and sticky body against wet and sticky body. He loves to hold her in his arms when she smells of sex and sweat, her body bearing the traces of their lovemaking. He pulls the blanket over them, drowning in tender caresses and long kisses, and the bond unfurls. They lay bare their souls to each other, sharing all thoughts and feelings, revealing every moment of sadness, doubt or insecurity they suffered in the past two months, and making it up to each other.

As he remains in her embrace with their bond fully open, Kylo loses the sense of where his mind and body end and hers begin. They make love one more time, slowly, and when Rey comes again, and he comes just after her, it feels as familiar and soothing as coming home.

* * *

“Let’s have a swim,” Kylo suggests after what seems like hours, sated with love, his whole being buzzing with happiness. The night air is sweet. He hasn’t swum for years, but he is an excellent swimmer. On Chandrila, ages ago, he used to love taking a dip now and again.

“The water is cold –”

“How do you know? I bet you haven’t even put your foot in it.”

He pulls himself up from the ground, stands and stretches. Then he leans down and scoops her up in his arms.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting you into a romantic midnight bath. I’m going to wash all those love fluids off you.”

Rey laughs.

“Are you going to carry me again? Like on the day we met?”

He remembers so well carrying her in his arms here on Takodana, in this very forest, to his shuttle; her slight weight, her warmth against his body. It was so long since another body had been so close to his that he was taken aback and disarmed by the sensation. He had already admired her courage when she blindly shot at him with her blaster as he had pursued her through the forest, but during the long minutes when he carried her, something moved inside of him, something deep and almost tender. It confused him but also made him stay with her until she woke up in the interrogation room, and he knelt by her chair so as not to scare her when she opened her eyes.

Now, he is carrying her again, but this time she is conscious and willing, and he’s not wearing his mask and hood; in fact, he is naked. Things have changed. Neither of them could have imagined that back then.

He finds the water pleasantly refreshing, but Rey whimpers and drags her knees up to her chest when her feet touch the lake’s surface.

He puts her down slowly and gives her a kiss.

“Go have a swim,” she urges him. “I need to get used to the temperature first.”

He nods, turns around and dives into the lake.

* * *

The sand at the bottom must contain large amounts of silica purifying the water because Kylo feels his skin and hair gradually become like silk, soft and smooth. The water feels so delicious he could stay in it for hours. The lake is almost completely dark, even under the sky full of stars; Takodana has no moon. The Force murmurs approvingly. Kylo is enjoying the soft sound of water rippling around him, the pleasure of working his muscles as he swims further away from the shore, and the relaxed feeling of a holiday that has only just started. A holiday he hasn’t taken for years.

In the end, he turns around to find Rey’s silvery silhouette where he left her. He swims back and, a hundred metres or so before her, he dives and slides under the water, in an expert movement, to emerge just in front of her.

“Still too cold?”

“No,” Rey smiles. “It’s actually very pleasant. But I wanted to watch you… I like to see you enjoy something so much. Are we going to swim in the sea on Chandrila?”

“All the time. You’ll learn very quickly. You’ll love it.”

Rey smiles again and runs her hand through her hair. She has let it loose; it is now splayed over her shoulders.

“Ben,” she starts. “When you said I could take your name, were you asking me to marry you?”

Kylo freezes. This is literally the last thing he expected from her in this moment, or any moment at all. And as his emotions rush in, the first impulse is to panic. He takes a step back and grows silent for a while, but she looks at him and waits patiently.

“What if I was?” he asks in the end.

“Answer me, Ben.”

He shifts, the water swelling around him.

“Perhaps I was. But I understand it’s not the time for… it’s much too early for that, if… actually, it doesn’t matter. Forget it.”

“What if it matters to me? What if I don’t want to forget?” Rey asks, taking a step in his direction, into the deeper water.

“You would consider it?” he asks, incredulous.

“That depends. Did you actually mean it, or was it just a quick fix because I was upset?”

He snorts, but it doesn’t feel funny.

“Of course I meant it. I meant it then, and I meant it in Snoke’s throne room before that.”

“On both occasions, I wasn’t sure. I guess a more confident woman would have known.”

“A more confident man would have spoken more clearly,” Kylo replies curtly and looks down. Silence falls again.

He feels her eyes on him. He is moving his fingers slowly through the water, not knowing what to say – he doesn’t know what she wants, doesn’t know what the right words would be. Last time he tried she didn’t even understand him immediately. The time before that, he actually told her _she was nothing_.

“If I marry,” Rey says quietly, and Kylo’s eyes dart to her, “then, one day – not now, but in some years – I would like to have children.”

He forgets how to breathe as he stares back at her. Seconds and heartbeats and lifetimes pass, and in his mind, a storm rages. It’s the most frightening and the most wonderful thing; it’s what he at once fears and desires deeply, so deeply that he never thinks about it, he chases the thought away furiously whenever he chances upon it, because of all the things that seem unreal, this one is the most painfully so.

“Children as in more than one?” he manages after an eternity, for lack of anything better to say, his voice strained because it takes everything out of him to try and appear calm.

“Oh,” Rey shifts. “I don’t know… it can be one, I guess. Or two? Probably not more than two? Because we wouldn’t really have time for more, what with your official duties, and the projects, and the Jedi school…”

“True,” Kylo replies. Her little monologue has given him time to catch his breath, even if he doesn’t trust his broken voice. “If I have children, I want to spend time with them. They won’t be raised by droids.”

“Definitely not,” Rey agrees, plucking at the ends of her hair and peering at him intently. “But it’s easy to say, you know. With a position like yours –”

“No,” Kylo interrupts her firmly. “_No_. If I had a family of my own – _they would always come first_.”

“I know,” Rey says calmly. “You would be a good husband and father. I know that.”

“I would try my best,” he says, his heart twisting with something between regret and anger. No child of his will wait for the father’s return for weeks. No child of his will listen anxiously to the parents’ screaming at each other in the other room. No child of his will be sent away –

“These children would be powerful,” he says in the end, slowly, because this is the darkest part of his fear. “Strong Light… and strong Darkness.”

She must know what he means. He doesn’t want to say it.

“I know,” Rey nods. “Luckily, their parents would know how to handle that. There would be no evil voices whispering into these children’s minds that their parents couldn’t shield them from.”

Something in him screams _NO_. This is too much treacherous hope. As soon as he believes a life like this could be his, it will be taken away from him, he will be punished for wanting it, he will wake up from this dream, he will suffer again –

“Would my name be Rey Solo if I married you?” Rey asks and Kylo actually stumbles on something in the water, a small rock lying at the bottom. He almost falls in.

“If you wanted to take it. It’s not obligatory –”

“You know I want to,” Rey says.

Kylo runs his wet hand through his hair but stops because it’s trembling too much. It is fortunate that there isn’t too much light because his face is probably betraying all the fear and confusion he is feeling right now.

He closes his eyes, breathes and reaches for the Force to give him the peace he needs to do this right.

When he raises his eyes to her again, just before he starts speaking, he knows – although he didn’t prepare any of it before, in truth he didn’t even dream, after his first two aborted attempts, that he’d be able to renew his offer and she’d be willing to listen – but he knows that this time, _he will finally do it right_. These words, all the possible words he could use, he has turned them around in his head for so long, since the _Supremacy_’s throne room disaster and since their parting conversation on the _Finalizer_ two months ago, beating himself up. It truly amazed and puzzled him, whenever he thought of it, that he could feel so strongly about her and yet fail so spectacularly every time he tried to make his pitch.

“I think I have loved you from the beginning,” Kylo says. “I’m not sure when it happened exactly; the moment I found you in the forest, or when I carried you to my ship, or when you told me to take off the mask, or maybe only when you stood above me in the Starkiller forest as I was bleeding into the snow. But it started back then, and I didn’t know what it was nor why I felt it. Now I know why. It used to scare and anger me. It doesn’t anymore.”

Rey smiles and listens, her naked body glistening in the starlight, the water coming up to her breasts but not covering them entirely. He can’t get over her beauty.

“I wasn’t able to do the right thing. I didn’t know how to say the right words. When I said you’re nothing – I meant _you’re everything_, to me.”

He takes a step in her direction and she imitates his movement. They’re standing very close now; if he reached out, she could take his hand.

“Rey,” Kylo says, “I want you to join me. We can have a home and a family together, build a new Jedi Order, and bring a new order to the galaxy. But first things first.”

He holds out his hand to her in a familiar gesture. It still trembles slightly, he cannot help it, although not nearly as much as it did on the _Supremacy_.

“Marry me,” he says. “Please.”

In his worst moments of madness and hurt pride after Crait, he swore that when he offered her his hand again, she would take it. _She’d better take it_. Then he raged and swore the contrary: that he would never look at her again, he would forget her, and she would regret forever turning him down.

All those feelings are long gone. His plea to her is as sincere and as desperate now as it was on the _Supremacy_, in that moment both cursed and magical that seems like centuries ago, yet also like yesterday.

He can only hope that this time, he has made a better case for himself.

* * *

“Marry me. Please.”

The image will stay burned in Rey’s mind. The water coming up to his waist, his body and soul naked before her, unlike when he held out his hand to her for the first time. But just like then – only this time with much better words – he is offering her his heart. She memorizes his wet hair in a mess around his head, his eyes black in the night and yet so expressive, his voice still somewhat uncertain. The man definitely has a dramatic flair. He knows how to build momentum and pick the setting, she will give him that. His pitches, though somewhat awkward, every time hit her squarely in the chest as if he was shooting Force lightning at her.

She did want to take his hand on the _Supremacy_. So much. When she reaches out to him now and brushes her fingers against his, it reminds her of the first time they touched like this, in her hut on Ahch-To. And when she looks around, it takes her back to the very beginning of their story, here on Takodana. A full circle.

On the long way that started _here _and_ then_, Rey has somehow managed to make the choices – some of them difficult, some hurtful for her and for him – that have brought them _here _and_ now_. Here, to this moment, and not to any other. She’s grateful to the universe, to the Force, to Ben, to herself, to all those that helped them on the way, friends and ghosts, because on this long, tumultuous and treacherous path both she and Ben did whatever was needed at any given time to arrive exactly at this point. Among so many possible endings to this story, they’ve got this one. Not an end but a new beginning.

All the alternate realities flash in Rey’s mind like a Force vision, the way they have been coming to her in her thoughts and nightmares, and she lets them go. She focuses all her attention on the man standing in front of her right now. He is not a ghost, not a memory, not a dream, but real and solid, warm and strong, his hand extended to her once again.

And she takes it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are at last! I hope reading this story has given you some joy and helped a little with the post-TROS heartbreak. Writing it has done that for me. It’s good to be able to take shelter in our imagined worlds. 
> 
> An epilogue? Maybe, one day, not immediately. I’ve been toying with the idea. Not promising anything; if you're interested, stay subscribed just in case. It would be set a few years after the events of the main story, but the story is complete as it is. Let’s give them time to enjoy these years for now.
> 
> My most heartfelt, humble thanks to all of you for coming with me on this journey - for every kudos, subscription, bookmark and comment you’ve left me. They really made me happy. Drop me a line to tell me how you find it now that we’ve reached the end. Was the ending everything you hoped for, did you fear it would be different? I’m very curious. 
> 
> I will miss all this and all of you.


	23. Epilogue: Part One

** _Eight years later_ **

“Master Rey!”

Rey jerks awake violently. She loses her balance and catches herself in the last moment before falling face first onto the ground. Apparently, she has fallen asleep in her cross-legged sitting position.

A dozen or so people sitting in front of her, humans and aliens of different species and ages, from ten-year-old kids to those much older than herself, are laughing. Rey reaches out and pats the head of a little Togruta boy, her youngest student.

“I’m sorry, Mayyte. I’m tired. I haven’t slept well. This will be all for today.”

She stands up and smiles as they all follow suit.

“I will see you after the holidays,” Rey says. “Enjoy it. Have fun. Spend time with your loved ones. And don’t use Force tricks on them!”

After the chats and prolonged goodbyes are over and people disperse, Rey takes the Togruta boy’s hand and leads him outside.

His mother is already waiting, her ship parked at the edge of the vast meadow just by the treeline, not far from the hut where the meditation session was held. The school is a collection of large comfortable huts spread all over this meadow, plus one bigger communal building in the middle. They all enjoy a great view of the sea and Hanna City from the vantage point that the slight elevation provides.

The Togruta woman is tall, much taller than Rey, and smiles when she sees her son with the teacher.

“Ayla,” Rey greets her, and the two women embrace. Rey is on good terms with all the families of her students, but she and Ayla struck a real friendship. Both of them are orphans, they are more or less the same age. Ayla was born and bred in the lower levels of Coruscant amidst misery and crime. Yet nothing bad happened to her, she grew into a strong woman, and she is raising her son alone. Mayyte is the fruit of a short and sweet love. It’s difficult to imagine Ayla settling down with a man anyway. She’s too independent, too wild for that. And thank the Force, because if her restlessness hadn’t made her leave her home world as soon as she came of age, she would have been planet-side at the time of Palpatine’s fleet’s terrible attack on Coruscant eight years ago, and she would be dead now.

“How has he been?” Ayla asks while the boy clings to her. They haven’t seen each other for two weeks. Rey does not allow longer periods of solitude than that to students under twelve years of age, unless they have no parents. Two orphans attend her school, but they have found new homes and families on Chandrila, so they are also not alone.

“Sweet as usual.”

They chat for a while, about children, about the school, everyday life. Then they say goodbye; Rey is busy today. The school will be empty for two weeks and she’d love to go on holiday too, but it might not be possible. In any case, she’s hoping to get some rest.

At twenty-eight, Rey Solo is in her prime. What she has gained in maturity, she has not lost in freshness. She wears her hair differently now, often down, like today. She still prefers simple, comfortable outfits with slacks or trousers, but she has taken to dresses, usually knee or mid-calf length, with a wide skirt, not too ornate. The colours she likes to wear are green or light brown, light grey, and cream. She has not put on much weight despite better nutrition; she still exercises a lot and her frame remains light. Physically, she feels very good. And other than that, it is the best time of her life, the time when she has everything: caring people around her, a purpose, power, authority, knowledge, experience, the Force. The whole galaxy knows her face. She lives on Chandrila where there is no desert but greenery and the sea, and a nice bustling capital city. She has a home. She has a life.

But today is not a good day.

Not that she’s tired of her school. She loves it. It’s not a regular Jedi academy. There’s no isolation from the world, exhausting rites of passage, duties and obligations set in stone. Each Force-sensitive individual is welcome here, for a day or for a year, or for ever. They can choose classes. Rey insists on meditation and lessons about the Force, the history of its users, and the Jedi and Sith doctrines and philosophy. The conversations about the Force are the most important part of the training – she needs to teach people how to use it responsibly. There’s no obligation to learn combat or forge a lightsaber. Her students aren’t supposed to become an army or a political Council. They are studying the Force for themselves, or to help their communities and worlds, so as to become better, more useful citizens. Not necessarily to defend the galaxy.

The galaxy is well defended. By a real army.

Nevertheless, some of her students want to enter the military or politics. They like combat. They are proud to use their abilities for the public good and, although Rey reminds them of the arrogance of the old Jedi, they do want to be heroes. The tales of her and Ben defeating Palpatine are legends every child and every adult in the galaxy knows. They’re in history books. It’s not so easy to resist the fantasy of becoming such a hero yourself once you find you have the same abilities.

Vanity and delusions of grandeur can be dangerous when combined with power, Rey warns. So tread carefully. Darkness and Light are both part of us, to be acknowledged, used and cherished – but to be kept in balance. The old Jedi code, which taught that there’s no passion, there’s only peace, has no place in Rey’s teaching, or at least not on its own. Denying your emotions and human instincts is the shortest path to the Dark side, she tells her students. When you become numb to emotions, you turn evil. So you should love, get attached, care about things and people, enjoy them. You should also suffer. Get angry. Get sad. But you must remain in control.

This new philosophy combined with the lack of an obligatory curriculum or any formal structure in the school is transforming radically the public image and understanding of what the Jedi are and what their role in the galaxy should be. In fact, they do not have a prescribed role. They can choose it. They are not an elite group, complex with its own internal hierarchy and rules, and Rey’s school is not a place for such an elite to graduate from. It’s a place where you can meet people who have this thing in common with you: the Force. A place where you can learn about it, share experience, ask for advice, get better at using it, together with others. And for this, people come over from the whole galaxy.

This new generation of Force users don’t even officially call themselves the Jedi. A label is not important, Rey reminds them, we are not an organisation or a sect, so we don’t need a name for it. It’s also not important where you come from, what species you are, what family you were born into. You are all equal and all special in the Force.

It’s been years and Rey feels she herself still has so much to learn about the Force. It’s been years and she still enjoys learning about it more than most other things in life.

Most, but not all.

And hers is not the only school in the galaxy. Saar-Yen-Dii, Kylo Ren’s former student, has now set up her own school on Cerea, her home world. Some others who came to Rey’s school at the very beginning and have stayed throughout the years are now close to attaining the level of maturity and mastery of the Force that will allow them to start teaching on their own. Soon there will be not one, not two, but many centres of excellence and knowledge of the Force in the galaxy. It’s Rey’s legacy, her pride and joy.

But today is not a good day.

* * *

“Rey!” Finn’s voice speaks so suddenly from her comlink that she almost jumps. Has she fallen asleep again? The large black chair in the Supreme Leader’s office is very comfortable. She may have drifted off for a moment, watching the sea from the window. The building is quite high for Chandrila’s standards, several storeys above the rest, and the sea is all over the horizon. The calm, deep blue sea, that has an almost hypnotic effect on Rey. She loves to sleep outside on warm summer afternoons, in her garden, with the distant sound of the waves reaching the shore. The sea is a few hundred metres away from her house, but she can hear it well. She can hear everything when she lies down in her garden – the cicadas, the wind, the leaves, the birds, the insects. And more. The flowers opening. The snakes sliding through the grass. The whales calling each other in the sea. She closes her eyes, extends her Force awareness –

And sometimes she falls asleep.

“How are you?” Rey asks wearily, rubbing her eyes. She hasn’t seen Finn for two months. He’s always flying all around the galaxy. He sits on the board in charge of the First Order’s stormtrooper programme. It’s a smaller body now but a few years ago, just after the victory, it used to be a huge team, full of generals and administrators and educators and mental health specialists. For the first two years or so after defeating Palpatine, all these experts did was designing a new training programme, suitable for an army but also for a peacekeeping force. Years of previous conditioning of the troopers, and related trauma, had to be undone. Additionally, the First Order had just released its records, so the troopers had got to know their origins and families, which in many cases triggered new trauma. Meanwhile the clones, freshly captured or rather rescued from Palpatine, were coming to terms with the fact that they had no origin and no family whatsoever, having been created in a Sith laboratory. After dealing with all of their separate issues, the team of experts also had to make these former adversaries – the First Order troopers and Palpatine’s clones – work together in one organization and towards one goal. It was a new goal, too – no more war but preserving peace.

Even if, in the end, they found themselves waging war as well.

That was plenty enough back then and Finn was right in the middle of it, happier than Rey had ever seen him, having found his true purpose. Now that a new trooper training programme is in place, new academies have opened, and the galactic peacekeeping force is strong and stable, Finn is putting his energy into finding new recruits in the outermost corners of the galaxy. This includes new worlds that get constantly discovered as the network of trade routes and hyperspace lanes is being expanded.

Finn is no politician, even if he’s trying. Rey suspects that most of all, he enjoys moving around and meeting new people.

Her friend’s holo smiles.

“Never better!” Finn says. “I’m back in a few weeks, so we can finally meet up. It’s been ages. How are you?”

Rey sighs.

“I know, I know. It’s not a good day. I remember. And how’s everybody?”

Rey sighs again.

“It’s so bad I need to go to the Council meeting alone,” she complains. “There is something major going on in the Nova labs. An important breakthrough. They insisted we both attend the presentation, but it’s impossible, so only I am going. It’s a total disaster, Finn. I have a feeling I’m doing three jobs at once. I’ve fallen asleep twice today.”

“It will be fine, Rey. You just need a holiday.”

“Looking forward to seeing the whole band when this is over,” Rey resumes eagerly. “Poe, and Zorii, and Rose, and you. At least I’ve seen Jannah a lot in the past weeks, here in the Order’s offices.”

Finn grins.

“My big sister is going up in the world, isn’t she?”

Recently promoted, Jannah is now commanding her own star destroyer, _Discovery_. She is one of those who follow the new routes traced through the uncharted space by intrepid pilots, and who make the first contact with new worlds. It’s not a safe job but she has proved her worth, courage and loyalty more than once.

Finn and Rey say goodbye fondly and Rey looks at the chrono. It’s time; the Council meeting will start in a moment.

She retrieves the holopad she needs for the meeting from a drawer in Kylo’s desk, exits his office and takes the turbolift to the underground. By tradition, Council meetings are held there, in the most secure place, rather than on the top floor of the building, exposed to aerial attacks. Not that there has ever been an attack; even during the two-year war the First Order waged against criminal syndicates after defeating Palpatine, the enemy never dared to attack the Order’s new stronghold on Chandrila. However, when so many important players of the galaxy are gathered in one room, the risk is just too big, so it’s a question of principle.

In any case, the enemy is no more. In what was clearly Kylo’s personal crusade, something he had always meant to do, the Order wiped out all the major gangs from the galaxy. The Hutts, the Pykes, Black Sun, Crimson Dawn, and many others – all gone. Some new networks and players emerge from time to time, but they get neutralised quickly, before they can grow and expand. For almost six years, the galaxy has been at peace. There is less and less wild space and hardly any lawless regions where crime can flourish.

Rey enters the Council conference room, a long office with an oval table in the middle. The First Order’s base on Chandrila, not far from Hanna City, is a huge compound but many buildings look completely normal from the outside, as if it was a town and not a military structure. Underground, though, there’s a system of bunkers and passages, protected by cutting-edge technology, state-of-the-art weapons and communication equipment. Many Council members are physically present today, Rey notes, which is not always the case – often people participate via holoconference. She dislikes this room without windows, with artificial lighting, and even if she’s officially part of the Council, she doesn’t participate in all meetings. She’s not the Supreme Leader, she doesn’t rule a galactic empire. But there are days when she has no choice – like today.

“Rey!” Daere, the First Order’s second in command after her predecessor Admiral Croos retired two years ago, approaches Rey. “What’s the news? Are we to expect the Supreme Leader?”

“No,” Rey says. “It’s just me today. Can this really not wait until – until such time as he can participate?”

“When will that be?”

“No idea,” Rey admits, and Daere hums in response. They take their seats around the table. Everyone bows to Rey; much as she doesn’t want the Supreme Leader’s title, they treat her as if she were one. Her powers are known, her influence is obvious. She can’t help thinking, even after all these years, that she sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of all these politicians, but she seems to be the only one thinking that.

Laan Torion, the Chief Scientific Officer of Nova, a tall Pau’an with grey, furrowed skin and sunken eyes, looks excited. Established by Kylo Ren eight years ago, Nova has become the galaxy’s most important innovation and technology hub. Ever since, Rey has attended many a secret presentation about new inventions that later, when announced publicly, sparked frenzy on the holonet. What is it this time? A new hyperspace route that can dramatically shorten the travelling time to the Unknown Regions? An innovative planetary shield that requires much less energy and can be deployed in record time? A new Force nexus? Or is it a discovery of yet another world with resources? Perhaps an uninhabited system full of minerals, or a fertile agricultural superplanet with a small population that is willing to trade?

The Pau’an presses the button and a holo presentation unfurls above the table.

“Today will be referenced in history books,” he announces with a slightly unnerving grin, showing his sharp, jagged teeth. Pau’ans rarely grin. It must be something big.

“There are close to one billion black holes in our galaxy. We have taken great care to avoid them; we made sure none of our hyperspace lanes ended too close to any of them so that no travelling ships fall into their gravitational field by chance. Over the last years, we have lost two brave pilots who, while tracing new routes through the deep space, had the misfortune of finding themselves too close to a black hole. We are afraid of black holes, we have learnt to keep away from them. _But so far, we have never thought of looking at them as useful._”

Rey’s curiosity is piqued.

“Nova laboratories, after years of research and failed attempts, have found a way to harness the energy of a black hole,” Torion continues, looking straight at Rey with bright eyes. “In a safe way, and in the form of radiation. Given the number of black holes out there, we are talking immense amounts of energy. To power homes, labs, industries, whole worlds, and starships!”

“The whole First Order fleet could be fuelled up in this way, Rey!” Admiral Daere squeezes Rey’s elbow with excitement. “Maintaining our armed forces would become so much cheaper! Worlds would have to pay so much less in defence contributions!”

“Amazing!” Rey exclaims. “But will the technology itself not be costlier than the benefits?”

The Chief Scientific Officer reassures her it won’t be the case. The scavenger in Rey still asks these questions. She may have stopped assessing how many portions anything is worth, but her first question about all new projects always concerns the cost, or rather the cost-benefit ratio. And yes, Rey can appreciate the importance of carrying out innovative research that will lead to improvements only gradually and will bring results one day in the future. But she prefers it when the benefits come immediately and when the results are concrete and practical.

It seems, in this case, they really are.

“How long will it take to deploy? Months, years?”

“Weeks,” Laan Torion replies. “It’s really not extremely complicated. Well, yes, of course it is complicated. But once we discovered how to do it, it won’t take long to produce the prototypes of the equipment and start the trials.”

“Won’t it cause any space accidents?” Rey asks. Too many lives have been lost. The war with Palpatine, the destruction of Espirion and Coruscant, the subsequent war with the gangs – altogether, billions of sentient beings died. The Order’s first duty is to defend and protect the galaxy, not to endanger anyone with reckless enterprises.

“We will start the trials in a very remote corner of the Unknown Regions. No inhabited systems nearby. The equipment is operated remotely so no lives will be in danger. But according to our calculations, nothing bad should happen.”

“It is a pity the Supreme Leader could not attend the presentation,” one of the Council members cuts in. Indeed, the Chief Scientist must be chagrined that he couldn’t make his pitch to Kylo Ren himself. Kylo’s silent approval during such meetings in this room is what everyone craves. Even if they are in awe of Rey as much as of Kylo, and even if in theory they are all equal as members of the Council, the entrance Kylo Ren makes, striding into the room, his black cape swirling about him, the electricity he immediately fills the space with, somehow makes everyone eager to please him.

“We couldn’t wait, Rey,” Daere explains. “The team working on this is too big. Sooner or later someone will leak the news and the media will find out, and we really don’t want them to find out like this. We want an official press conference, so that there are no suspicions of foul play. Nobody should think we’re cooking up something secret and dangerous, like a new superweapon.”

“Very well,” Rey decides. “Organise the press conference. I can be there, if needed.”

“The day after tomorrow, if it’s good for you?”

Rey sighs. It was supposed to be a holiday, finally.

“The day after tomorrow is fine.”

The meeting ends two hours later, after the Chief Scientist and his team talk everyone through the complex technicalities of the new solution, and after everyone has had the chance to ask their questions. Then Rey speaks to several officials and generals of the Order, who all seem to be more and more disconcerted by the Supreme Leader’s absence. She also exchanges a few words with each Council member. Finally, just as she starts to fear she might get trapped here for the rest of the day, it ends, and she is free to leave.

* * *

She gets on her speeder parked in the courtyard of the First Order’s Headquarters and rides at full speed towards the exit of the compound, then in the direction of her home. The school is the other way, in the hills surrounding Hanna City. It was important to her and Ben to have their home separate from their workplace, even if these days it feels to Rey she works all the time, wherever she is. The guards before the main gate greet her and she chats to them for a while before leaving her speeder and entering.

As she walks through the garden towards the house’s entrance, the tension and the fatigue slowly disappear. Her garden, the only extravagance she asked for, though not the only one she got, is her favourite place. Long alleys of trees, colourful flowerbeds, shaded corners with comfortable benches, and everything kept nicely and naturally. Climbing plants grow on the house’s façade and Rey loves to see it like this, in the sun, as she approaches the big clearing at end of the lane. Her mansion and its beautiful grounds stretch out before her. It’s all she could ever wish for and more, elegant in a discreet way, full of comfort, but it isn’t a palace. It’s a home. Ben had this house built for them almost eight years ago.

Rey enters the building. The hall is flooded with sunlight but pleasantly cool. Through the open rear door, she spots several droids busy at the back of the house, on the lawn. There isn’t any living being in sight.

She climbs the marble staircase and goes slowly past empty, quiet rooms. She takes her shoes off; it is one of her pleasures, on a hot day, to walk barefoot on the cool floor. It reminds her of late evenings on Jakku when the sand finally started losing the heat of the day. Such a deadly silence. It didn’t use to be like this here. Rey misses the bustle, the voices, the energy. But it looks like it will be yet another evening alone with a cup of tea and a history book on her lap. And today, of all days, she wishes it could be different.

Rey enters the bedroom. It’s a spacious bright room with high ceilings, opening onto a terrace at the back of the house, overlooking a private park. The sea can be seen in the distance. She loves to have breakfast on this terrace. It’s a view she will never tire of.

At the moment, though, the curtains are almost closed, and the room is rather dark even if today is one of those long summer days and the sun will stay high for a few more hours. Rey hasn’t been looking forward to this moment, though it makes her feel guilty to think that. How bad will it be today?

But when she looks around, everything looks very different from the state she left this room in in the morning. The floor is strewn with colourful toys, books and holopads. A dejarik board lies on a little coffee table, the holo of the interrupted game still on.

And on the bed, amidst the disarray of sheets and pillows and duvets and blankets – with more toys and books in between – Rey spots three shapes, and three mops of black hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone. I’m sorry it took so long but I felt I needed to give them - and myself - some time before the epilogue. It was supposed to be one chapter but it became too long and I thought this is a good cliffhanger to end Part 1 with. Part 2 will be up soon! Why is Rey having such a bad day? Where is Ben? All this and more will be answered.
> 
> I have missed my readers. I hope some of the old ones will return for this final instalment, and new ones will discover this story. I keep receiving kudos and nice comments from you, so once again I want to thank you - here’s hoping you will like the epilogue.


	24. Epilogue: Part Two

She stands next to the bed for a long moment, then sits down in an armchair in the corner of the room.

As minutes pass, the dark mood that enveloped her throughout the day dissipates. Today is just an anniversary of a very bad day, long ago. Last night, it was just a nightmare. For the past few weeks, it was just a disease. But it’s fine. Here they are, the three people she loves the most, asleep.

She folds her legs under herself, props her head on her elbow and watches them. She could fall asleep like this too, never mind the dinner, she doesn’t want to risk waking them up. The house is quiet, she is tired, the armchair is comfortable, she will close her eyes in a moment, she just wants to enjoy the view for a few more minutes –

The largest shape on the bed moves. He turns his head slowly to his left, opens bleary eyes and looks at her.

_Ben._

“Rey,” he croaks and coughs. Her heart skips a beat, and then she tells herself off for it. It’s nothing. He’s been down for a few weeks with an awful virus he caught on one of those new worlds they discovered. Turns out the Force can’t heal a virus. It can heal wounds, even mortal ones, but it cannot reduce the quantity of viral pathogens in the blood, so Rey couldn’t help Ben in any way. It was his own fault, too. Instead of waiting for the detailed results of biological and chemical analyses of the soil and the atmosphere, he went there as soon as it was clear the air was breathable and no major toxic substances were detected. He went just because, while on another mission, he happened to find himself not far from that part of the galaxy. He went on a whim, for no other reason than his bloody stubbornness.

Weeks of fever, blistering headaches, debilitating muscle pains, coughing and wheezing followed. By the time his disease was full-blown, the Nova laboratories had identified a treatment, then created a vaccine that everyone who was in contact with the Supreme Leader and his ship’s crew received, including his family.

The vaccine worked so nobody else got infected, but the treatment didn’t work so well on all patients. Astonishingly, it didn’t work on Ben. Of course he refused to go to hospital, and he spent the last two weeks at home in a pitiful state.

“Are you any better?” Rey asks, getting up from the armchair. She sits on the floor next to the bed and places her hand on his forehead.

It’s much cooler. His eyes have lost the unhealthy, feverish shine they’ve had for the past weeks. And, incredibly – he smiles.

“I am better,” he says, this time in a stronger voice, although he’s still keeping it low. “The fever broke. I woke up at midday, sweating, thirsty, and without a headache.”

She smiles back and strokes his hair in silence.

“Are you well?” Ben frowns. “Why the tears? What happened, Rey?”

“Nothing.”

He watches her for a moment, then suddenly clicks his tongue.

“Not this again, Rey.”

“And what about them?” Rey changes the subject, gesturing to the two other little shapes on the bed.

“Well, they heard me stir and they came.”

“More like, they felt you in the Force.”

He glances at them.

“They’re still asleep,” he says fondly.

* * *

You can learn so much about the personalities of these kids just from the position they choose in their sleep, Rey thinks, reaching out to stroke the two black heads carefully so as not to wake them up. Sapphire, the turbulent, independent, wild spirit possessed of a strong temper naturally picked her own spot at the end of the bed and wrapped herself like a cat around her father’s leg. She clutches it in her sleep. For a four-year-old, she has a really strong grip. Ben often carries her around perched on his shoulders, because Sapphire likes to look at the world from a high vantage point, and he never needs to worry about her falling down. She always holds on to him.

One year ago, when told the story of the Knights of Ren, Sapphire declared herself one of them and announced that from now on she was to be called Rhys Ren. Her parents laughed and didn’t pay much attention. Rey assumed her daughter would forget about it after a few days. She never did. By now, almost everyone calls her Rhys. Maybe she will appreciate Sapphire more when she is grown up, Rey hopes, but for now, Rhys it is.

Nolan, her quiet, sensitive twin brother, curled up beside his father, his little head on Ben’s chest, Ben’s arm around him. Is Nolan being slightly bullied by his hot-headed sister, Rey asked Ben a few weeks ago, when he was still healthy and life looked normal, as they watched one of the kids’ disputes after dinner.

“Nah,” Ben waved his hand dismissingly. “He holds his own. It’s just… they have different ways of using the Force. She’s testing him. She’s curious.”

Even at the age of four, they are already so different. They do indeed reach for the Force differently, Rhys through strong emotion, Nolan in peace and concentration. Rhys’ heart is filled with a keen sense of justice, always ready for indignation. She is a bit too impatient, too quick, too impulsive.

Well, that sounds familiar.

“Nolan, on the other hand, is a little Luke Skywalker,” Ben remarked to Rey when she shared her observations on Rhys with him. “He will be a scholar one day. A philosopher. He will take over your school when you retire.”

“And Rhys?”

Ben shrugged.

“Rhys will take over the First Order, obviously.”

Obviously. He’s grooming her to be a little Supreme Leader already. There’s nothing Rhys likes more than to be taken on board a star destroyer and watch the blue streaks of hyperspace through the main viewport on the bridge, whispering advice about how to run the galaxy into her father’s ear.

* * *

“They came to play,” Ben says. “We ended up playing here… I didn’t even change into day clothes, we had tea and cake in bed, and then we got tired, and fell asleep.”

“Were they being difficult?” Rey asks. Because for the past weeks the children were difficult. Used to spending a lot of time with their father, they got very anxious during his disease. They woke Rey up a few times almost every night, crying, complaining of nightmares, demanding their father. There are nurses in the house, and they tried to spare Rey the trouble, but it’s her children, she can’t sleep when they cry, and in the morning she had to get up to go to the school, so it’s been very, very difficult.

“Not at all,” Ben replies. “But I know they’ve been giving you a hard time.”

He glances at her furtively. He does that when he feels guilty.

“I know I’ve been giving you a hard time, too,” he admits. “I’m sorry.”

He has. Kylo Ren down with a virus is the worst thing in the galaxy. He wouldn’t go to hospital but he couldn’t accept being ill at home, either, and he was so ill he was falling over whenever he tried to get up and walk around for more than a few minutes. Battle wounds he can handle. But an infection, no. So he was constantly losing his temper, he smashed a holopad – _Rey hates it when he does that_ – and screamed, though not at her or anyone in particular. On the rare occasions when he was awake, he was always irritated, always on edge. When he talked, it didn’t fully make sense. She was afraid his brain was affected. When he was in pain or feeling particularly unwell, he whined and cursed, and tossed in his bed. Rey moved to another bedroom. Between this and the unhappy kids, between her school and having to deal with some Council business, like today, she’s had enough.

She takes a breath and strokes his hair again.

“You were very ill. I’m happy you feel better.”

“I’m not dying, Rey,” he says, his serious, dark eyes watching her. He takes her hand and squeezes it. “There is no need for these tears. That was eight years ago. We talked about it.”

It was eight years ago to the day when he almost died on Exegol, and yes, they did talk about it. Rey’s nightmares went away and she stopped thinking about it. But whenever she fears for him – and she did fear in the last weeks, he seemed to be suffering so much, even though it would have been unthinkable that a stupid virus could kill Kylo Ren – and whenever she is stressed out and tired, like in the last days, the crippling, irrational fear returns.

Last night she had one of the old nightmares again, a first one in years. He died on Exegol and his body disappeared. But this time she didn’t travel back to that moment in her dream – she was here, in her house, on Chandrila, walking through the quiet rooms, knowing that he had died and how it had happened, _remembering it_. Ben is dead, she thought, he was never here, I am alone in this big empty house. But I have children, she considered. Where are my children? No, I must be mistaken. There are no children if Ben is gone. He died on Exegol and I have no family. I have imagined one, a husband and dark-haired twins, a boy and a girl, just like years earlier I liked to imagine having parents.

She woke up screaming. She ran to the kids’ room, made too much noise and woke them up. They started crying. Ben was coughing through his sleep from his bedroom. Rey wept in her bed for the rest of the night, then had no energy in the morning to even have breakfast with her children. She left them with a nurse. She didn’t dare to go see Ben. She just went to her school, then spent the afternoon in the Council meeting, fell asleep twice, and the horror of the nightmare, the horror of Exegol, crept after her for the whole day.

In a way, the memories of Exegol are more terrifying now that she is a mother. To the terror of Ben’s death another is added: if he had died, their children would never have been born, and she would have lost the family she wanted so desperately that having it now seems almost too good to be true.

“Look at me,” Ben says and tilts her chin up with his hand. His eyes are tired too but there is again intelligence and strength in them. The illness affected him so much he didn’t even look like the person he is. Now his palm is warm but in a pleasant way, not hot with fever.

“I missed you,” Rey whispers.

“I am here,” he replies, and Rey puts her arms around his neck and presses her mouth to his. The bond opens. Words are not needed, emotion bursts, and all is understood readily and completely, as usual between the two of them.

“Mom. I’m hungry.”

Rey opens her eyes and finds Sapphire staring at her, totally focused, as if she wasn’t deeply asleep just a moment ago. She is still clutching her father’s leg, she hasn’t changed her position, which makes Rey smile.

“You’ve been doing that again,” their daughter remarks.

“Doing what?”

Rhys gestures between Rey and Ben.

“The Force thing. I can feel it when you do it.”

_She can feel the bond now?!_

_Apparently. But just the intensity or the type of emotion. This is how she described it to me this morning: I can see the colour of it, she said. She can’t hear any words._

_Thank the Force for that!_

_That’s right. Be grateful, Rey. Other parents don’t have the luxury of exchanging indecent thoughts in their minds so that the children can’t hear them._

_Precisely. Not much can be hidden from Rhys anyway!_

Ben smiles and sits up on the bed slowly, lifting his son in his arms. The child starts stirring, blinks his eyes a few times, then looks around, crawls across Ben’s body to Rey’s side and snuggles in without a word.

“Come here, you too,” Rey extends her other hand to Rhys, who finally lets go of her father.

She pulls them both into a tight embrace and buries her face in the combined mass of their black manes. They smell of sleep and cake and summer afternoon, and also of a freshness Rey doesn’t quite know how to describe but she has come to associate the scent with her children.

“So, Rhys is hungry,” she murmurs into their little heads. “What would you like to eat, all of you?”

Ben is now sitting at the edge of the bed, his feet on the floor, combing his hair with his fingers. He looks around.

“It’s a mess here,” he admits. “I’ll have a droid clean it all up and change the bedsheets. We can go to the dining room.”

“Or we can eat here,” Rhys says, looking up at him pleadingly from her mother’s arms. “In bed. We already had cake and tea in bed. I liked it.”

Cake and tea in bed are not allowed. Both Rey and Ben dislike eating in bed. They don’t find it romantic or indulgent, it’s just messy. But it’s the first day the children have spent with their father since he fell ill, and Rey is very tired, and the room needs to be cleaned anyway.

“How about we have some hot chicken and vegetable broth?” Rey suggests. “And some dessert?”

“Jogan fruit?” Nolan asks hopefully.

“You’ve had Jogan fruit cake earlier,” Ben reminds him. “There are other desserts, Nolan.”

“Blue milk custard!” Rhys shouts, and Nolan winces. He doesn’t like creamy desserts.

Rey orders the food from the kitchen, the broth with bread and the jogan fruit cake and the blue milk custards. Half an hour later they all sit on the bed with their bowls, eating and talking.

Ben is devouring his dinner and asks for a second helping. He didn’t eat much in the past two weeks, so it’s another sign he is getting better. His eyes shine when Rey tells them about the big discovery made by the Nova laboratories. She shows the kids a black hole on her holopad, while Ben reaches for his datapad and scans his work messages quickly to read the reports on the discovery. He gets excited, he tells the kids how this will change everything. He has a rare ability to explain even the most complex concepts and their practical applications to four-year-olds, both of whom listen carefully, their foreheads wrinkled in concentration.

Rey answers a few questions, but mostly watches. She loves to see Ben and the children interact, she loves to see her husband, once the most feared, cruel and inapproachable man in the galaxy, who flew off the handle at the slightest contradiction, so completely conquered by two kids.

It was love at first sight. He cried when he held them just after their birth. Since then, it has happened to Rey to wake up in the middle of the night and find herself alone in the bed even though he went to sleep with her. On such occasions, she invariably found him in the kids’ bedroom, sitting by their beds, his eyes full of wonder.

The first time, she asked him why. Did they cry, is this why he got up?

“No,” he replied. “I just wanted to watch them.”

Sometimes she went back to bed, but at other times she stayed with him, her head on his shoulder, in silence, the bond between them open. Never had she felt as much Light in him as during those nights spent by the children’s beds.

* * *

They finish eating, the bed is a tragic mess, and they all go out to the terrace while the droid cleans up. The sun is setting. Ben complains of cold; the evening is a bit on the windy side, so Rey covers him with a blanket. He frowns and protests he’s not an invalid but keeps the blanket and looks happy with the attention. Nolan crawls onto Rey’s knees, Rhys onto Ben’s, and they spend another hour or two watching the sea on the horizon, drinking tea and telling stories.

Nolan, who especially loves stories, today, of all days, wants to hear the one of his parents defeating Emperor Palpatine and the forces of Darkness. It’s the anniversary, they may have seen it on the holonet this morning or Ben reminded them. And they do know the story already. Ben has told it to them a few times. When they get older, he promised once in a spell of good mood, he will be adding new information. Information they’re too young to hear for now. That was a mistake; it only made Nolan ask for the same story over and over again, in the hope he will finally unlock the classified parts.

The time for that has not come yet so Ben tells the story more or less the same way he always does, although he throws in a few additional details, such as the design of the ship he and Rey used to land on Exegol. He also mentions they had a premonition, or a vision, of the ice fortress and the black throne months earlier, when they opened a Sith holocron. This provokes an avalanche of questions about Siths and their holocrons, to which Ben responds easily and with visible pleasure.

He would be a great teacher. He is a great teacher already, though only occasionally, and not just to their children. He visits Rey’s academy from time to time, for combat sessions but also for more in-depth conversations with students about Light and Darkness. All of her students know his past. Rhys and Nolan don’t. This is one story he will have to tell them when they are old enough, the complete version: the story of his own darkness and his past deeds.

But this day is not today.

“You saved his life because you loved him so much?” Rhys asks at the end of the story.

“Yes,” Rey replies. “Although, you know, I would have tried to save his life even if I didn’t love him, obviously. But I did.”

“And do you still love him like that?” Rhys inquires, and both children grin.

“Yes,” Rey confirms again. Ben isn’t looking at her, he is watching the twilight on the horizon, his eyes slightly narrowed, a light smile on his lips. She knows he is listening though, and that he is happy to hear her reply.

“And then you saved Mom?” Nolan asks, turning to Ben.

“He did!” Rey says. “He woke up after his surgery and came to the bridge when we were above Coruscant and I was trying to destroy the whole clone fleet with the Force. I was desperate, I couldn’t see any way to win the fight. And he came to deliver me.”

Ben bursts out laughing.

“I didn’t save her, I saved everyone else _from her_! You know your mother can be terrifying when she’s angry.”

The children laugh. They love these stories. Not sure any of these, in any version, should actually be told to four-year-olds, Rey thinks uneasily, but how can you avoid it? You can’t shield them from this knowledge. Even in child-friendly books or programmes on the holonet they are likely to see much of this.

“Now, to speak about something less morbid,” Ben resumes, reaching out to bat Rhys’ hand down so as to stop her from pulling her brother’s hair. “Would you like to travel for the holidays?”

Judging by the happy screams that follow, they would love to travel. It’s a travel loving family, really. Rey loves to travel, too. It’s just that she didn’t think it would be possible this time.

“There’s a press conference about the black holes the day after tomorrow,” she reminds him. “Are you coming? If you feel better, you should.”

“Definitely. I will still get some rest tomorrow. Then, the day after, we do the press conference in the morning and we leave after that.”

“I’m not sure they have planned it for the morning –”

“Rey,” he says firmly. “They will plan it for whenever I want.”

This is true, and in all these years she still hasn’t got used to it. The First Order and the Nova management board would obviously plan the press conference for whenever Rey wanted, too, if she had just said a word. She didn’t have to agree to the event being held the day after tomorrow. It could have been earlier, or later than that. It was for her to decide, in Kylo Ren’s absence and on his behalf.

“Are we flying alone?” Nolan asks. “Just the four of us? In the _Falcon_?”

Of course it will be in the _Falcon_. They always take the _Falcon_ on private trips. The ship has got a complete makeover – everything in its belly that could have been changed, has been changed. It’s a very modern ship now with a somewhat retro look, and it will be in this ship, Ben promised his children, that they would learn how to fly.

Just like he did.

“We could go to Naboo for a few days,” Ben proposes. “And then somewhere else, wherever your mother wants.”

Naboo holds many tender memories for Rey. She and Ben spent their honeymoon in Varykino, Padmé Amidala’s castle by the lake, and later they took the kids there on many holidays. Rey is always happy to return there, and the scenery is breathtaking. But she likes to discover new places, too.

“Sesid?” she suggests. She has thought for some time of visiting this oceanic world in the Outer Rim with tropical islands and volcanic beaches. The children will love the turquoise waters and the huge floating leaves that apparently make for natural walkways on the water.

“Excellent choice,” Ben agrees. “Rhys, Nolan, you could start to learn diving there. I will teach you.”

Another half an hour passes as the children want to see on the holonet all the underwater creatures they will meet in the warm waters of the Sesid ocean, until Rey rubs her eyes wearily and Ben, glancing at her, decides:

“Time for bed now. We will plan the rest tomorrow.”

“I’ll take them to bed,” Rey says, standing up and stretching. He’s done enough. He’s still not fully well, and now she feels a bit guilty that this morning she didn’t even have the energy to eat breakfast with the kids. She will tuck them in to make up for it.

“I don’t want to!” Rhys protests immediately as if she had foreseen this. “I want to sleep here, on the terrace!”

“Rhys Ren,” Ben speaks in a changed, lower and deeper voice. Sapphire freezes in awe and watches him with her eyes wide open.

“You will immediately go to bed with your mother. And you will not give her any trouble. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes, master,” Rhys replies keenly.

_Have you coerced her to obey with the Force?!_

_Absolutely not. I used my authority. She’s a Knight of Ren and she mustn’t disobey her master. She knows that. But you should know she has just tried to use a Force trick on us, so that we let her sleep on the balcony._

_Yeah, I felt it. Nice try. _

Ben hides his smile as he scoops his children up in his arms one last time to give each a goodnight kiss.

* * *

As she puts them to bed, Rey tells the children one of her own stories from Jakku times. Her old doll is here, in their bedroom, on the shelf above Rhys’ bed. Rey’s old pictures, cut out from a book she found on a wreck of a star destroyer, then retrieved by Ben from her old AT-AT, are also here now. The children love the stories about the deprivation and hardships she suffered on Jakku and how she coped with them, and they’re fascinated by her experience of scavenging. Nolan gets horrified every time she tells them she had no real bathroom and couldn’t wash very often. Rhys, for her part, gets very quiet when Rey tells them that if she happened to be ill and couldn’t go to scavenge for a week or so, or if there was a desert storm that kept her indoors, she just didn’t eat because she never had enough food in stock.

There’s no pain in these memories anymore. Once the void in her life and heart has been filled, once she translated all these traumatic experiences into stories for her children and for her students, they make sense. Rey Nobody from Nowhere doesn’t have to curl in her cold bed at night anymore wishing for her inexistent parents to return. She has her own family now.

“Tell us how you and Dad met,” Rhys begs, and Rey stiffens. This is one of the stories that hasn’t been told yet although it’s not the first time they are asking the question. Today, however, she doesn’t feel like refusing them anything. What can she say though? Your father knocked me out with the Force and kidnapped me, then tied me to the interrogation chair and tried to invade my mind?

“We were enemies,” she explains. “On two sides of a war. It’s only later that we became friends and allies. At the beginning, we were fighting.”

“So he was with the bad guys then?” Nolan asks anxiously. “Or you were?”

“He was,” Rey admits. “But, really, it’s more complicated than that. Some of it was his fault, but some wasn’t. I can’t explain it very well just now… but I will one day. I promise. We will both explain this to you.”

“Well, we can ask grandmother,” Rhys comments, then stops abruptly and exchanges a nervous look with Nolan.

It takes Rey a moment to process.

“Grandmother?” she repeats blankly.

“Grandmother Leia,” Nolan says in a small voice.

“What do you mean? Have you watched any holos of her talking about your father? I don’t remember seeing anything like that –”

The twins look away, silent.

“Well?” Rey insists.

“She came to speak to us,” Rhys replies reluctantly. “She’s a ghost.”

“What?! When was that? When did you see her?”

“Just recently,” Nolan says uncertainly. “When father was ill… but she couldn’t stay long,” he adds quickly. “And we couldn’t even see or hear her very well…”

“Why didn’t you say anything? Are you sure it wasn’t a dream?”

They are silent again.

“We wanted to have a secret with her,” Rhys explains finally.

* * *

All this is buzzing in Rey’s head as she stretches on her big marital bed, the sheets freshly changed and the room cleaned, waiting for Ben to come back from the shower. Unlike she, a scavenger from the desert who had to save water, he doesn’t take a shower in three minutes, which is what she has just done in the kids’ bathroom. He likes to take his time.

And that’s good because it gives her time to consider. Should she tell him? Is it even true, or the kids only played and imagined seeing Leia’s ghost because they felt alone? They saw their grandmother on holos, they heard countless stories about her. The last weeks were stressful, their father was too ill to spend time with them, Rey was busy. Did Leia decide to step in or is it the children’s fantasy? Not once has Leia appeared to Ben or Rey since her death. They concluded that, unlike her brother and father, trained in Jedi ways, she didn’t have the ability to retain her consciousness in the Force after passing. So if Rey told Ben now Leia had visited the children, would it give him joy or pain, considering how much he had wished her to come to him?

The bathroom door is thrown open with the Force and her husband, almost naked except for a towel tied nonchalantly around his hips, his wet hair tousled, strides leisurely into the bedroom.

At thirty-eight, Kylo Ren is in his prime. Not a white hair in his black mane, no trace of aging on his face. And yet his features have become more mature, or rather they have lost a certain boyishness that Rey remembers from the first time she looked at him on the Starkiller base as he took off his mask. He looks much more manly now, she thinks, his face matching his strong body that has not lost any of its agility. He is sporting a goatee these days, which at the beginning seemed to Rey strange because it made him looked different – again, perhaps more mature – but now she finds it suits him so well he should never get rid of it. In his professional mode, attired in black and sitting at the top of the Council table, his eyes serious, his mouth somewhat tight, he always looks incredibly attractive. More than one princess, diplomat or other head of state has tried flirting with him at official functions, but whenever Rey alludes to it, which she does half-jokingly, he shrugs it off. He may slash through expensive equipment with his lightsaber, Force-choke people and burn villages – well, all of this is in the past now, maybe apart from breaking a holopad last week – but one thing Kylo Ren has never been guilty of is looking at other women.

Before she can decide whether to tell him about Leia or remain silent, he bends down, grabs her by the hips and pulls her to the edge of the bed.

“Oi! What are you doing?”

“You need to relax,” Kylo Ren murmurs, with an animal glint in his dark eyes, as he kneels on the floor and settles between her spread legs. “You are still tense…”

He wraps his arms around her thighs and starts to kiss their inner sides, while pulling her slightly closer again so that his face is just centimetres away…

Rey sighs and falls backwards, her head hitting the soft mattress. How come she didn’t know this is what she needed, and he knew? Because now, as she can feel his breath on her core, as he teases the delicate skin of her inner thighs with his kisses, this, she knows, is precisely what she needs. It’s been a lonely, stressful and celibate few weeks.

He spreads her legs wider with impatient hands and arms and dives in. She can feel his hot tongue on her, she is already wet, and she pushes herself onto his face.

“Like that, hm?” Kylo Ren murmurs from beneath her and Rey sighs. She loves his long, hot licks and the touch of his full lips on her core. As she starts writhing and moaning, he slips a finger inside her and curls it. He moves it back and forth, rubbing a spot that longs to be rubbed, the one just past her entrance, and also this other spot deeper still, which she can’t reach well with her own fingers but he can, and it’s this in addition to his tongue that finally makes all the tension accumulate and burst as she pulses into his mouth.

That didn’t take long.

As she lies still, her heartbeat slowing down, he rises on his knees and drags her even closer towards him.

“And now?” Rey asks. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, looking wild, then grabs her hips again, angles himself and pushes in.

It’s always been a deliciously tight fit and it’s even more so now, after a few weeks. He hardly gives her time to adjust as he starts moving, with slow and strong thrusts. Rey bends her knees, putting her feet on the bed on both sides of him, to let him in even deeper. He holds her down, his lustful eyes drinking her in, he is in charge, and she gives in to him. They are equals in life, they are equals in the Force, and there has never been any rapport of power between them since they got together – but in bed, sometimes, not always, but sometimes she does like it this way: relinquishing this bit of control to him, knowing that he will know what she wants without having to ask her. There’s a comfort in it, based on long-built trust, but there’s also something deeper, more basic and primal.

It doesn’t take long for him, either. It’s been too long since their last time. He shudders and finishes with a deep grunt, his hands squeezing her hips, then falls forward onto her and stops just above her face, the curtain of his hair around him.

“I am feeling better,” he growls.

Rey laughs.

“I can see that.”

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” Ben purrs, kissing her neck and collarbones, and sucking greedily her one nipple, then the other. “This is just the beginning.”

“You shouldn’t strain yourself,” Rey teases. “You’ve just been down with a virus.”

He makes a low warning sound, rises and flips her over onto her stomach. She lands at the edge of the bed again, her knees on the floor, and is pushed downward face first, then dragged by the hips backwards until her body hits his.

He splays his enormous hands on her back and a second later, she feels his kisses on the nape of her neck and between her shoulder blades.

“I will make it really good for you,” he murmurs. “I know what you like, Rey. The holiday has started.”

And she gives in to him again. She pushes back and rubs herself against him as he covers her back with kisses, first calm and slow ones, then more frantic as he gets hard again. The wetness from the first time is dripping down her legs and he moves his hands up and down her wet thighs, then all over her back until she’s wet and sticky, smelling of sex, which she knows excites him the most.

This time he enters her more aggressively. He places his right hand between her shoulder blades to hold her down and pulls her hips up, because he knows this is the angle she likes best. And then he is relentless, because the second time he is not on edge anymore, close to his orgasm all the time. He is totally in control and he is pleasuring her just as hard as she likes.

Rey loses the sense of time and place. There’s only the sensation of his hot hardness inside of her, hitting time and again all the spots that make her cry out with pleasure, his hands on her, the wet slapping of their bodies intensifying. He slides his hand between her legs and she arches her back to meet it. She won’t last long like this, she knows it, and as she comes again he almost stops moving for a moment, he lets her push back as hard and as fast as she needs while working her with his fingers. Then, after her first shudder, he resumes the hard pounding. He moans quietly as he comes, too, then makes a deep sigh and lowers himself surprisingly gently onto her back, enclosing her in his arms.

“I love you,” he says into her ear, then presses his face into her neck, and all is silent.

Rey’s thighs are trembling, the floor under them is wet, and her body feels so relaxed and light that she could fall asleep like this, kneeling by the bed, down on her stomach, with the weight of her husband on her and his warmth enveloping her.

* * *

“I dreamt of my mother,” Ben says quietly as they lie on the bed naked, entangled in each other’s arms. After another quick shower the night air is cool on their skin and she clings to him, seeking warmth.

It’s funny he should say that now, today of all days, just after what the twins told Rey. Nevertheless, she remains silent. It might be because of Exegol’s anniversary that he had such a dream, just like Rey had her nightmare.

“Was it a good dream?” she prompts finally. He shrugs.

“She was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t understand her. I just said I missed her.”

He sighs with a deep sigh of a man who is happy and satisfied with his life but from time to time remembers the little shards in his soul that make perfection unattainable.

“Was Dameron at the Council meeting?” he changes the subject.

“Yes, but by holo only. I hardly had time to speak to him.”

“I bet he volunteered to fly close to those black holes to deploy the equipment,” Ben comments with a touch of dry amusement in his voice. An uneasy friendship, or at least a certain camaraderie, has formed over the years between him and Poe. They have a lot of political discussions, as Poe continues to be a member of the Council in his capacity of a former Resistance General, and now also as the governor of the Bryx sector of the galaxy. There’s also a lot of mutual teasing about who is the better pilot.

“Just this last press conference, and we will enjoy the holiday,” Ben changes the subject again, gathering Rey closer to him. She turns onto her side to look at him.

“Don’t overdo it,” she pleads, stroking his face. “You were on your last legs for two weeks.”

“I was feeling awful. I couldn’t gather my thoughts, I kept getting confused. Once I woke up and couldn’t remember the kids’ names. I had a headache all the time.”

“It’s a very nasty virus. Let the doctor run some tests on you tomorrow, to make sure you’re fine before we go anywhere.”

He hums in agreement, closes his eyes and presses his temple against hers.

“When I was putting them to bed, Rhys asked me how you and I met,” Rey says and feels him stiffen.

“They will go to the kindergarten in a few months, you know. We should talk to them before that,” she insists as he remains silent.

“Talk to them about my past? They are too young for that. It will give them nightmares. They will hate me.”

She knows he’s afraid of it. This is one thing he hadn’t thought of before, not even when he already regretted his past. He hadn’t thought that one day, he would have to tell his own children.

But Rey did. Six years ago, when they stood together in the underground fortress the leader of Crimson Dawn had built on a frozen moon in the Unknown Regions to hide from Kylo Ren and the First Order, when Kylo held the man by the throat and ignited his lightsaber to decapitate him and brandish his head to the cameras for the whole galaxy to see – Rey didn’t let him. She crossed her own blade with his.

He growled at her as if she was the enemy. He had imagined the scene, he had told her so. This was how he wanted that gangster to die, in order to send a message to the leaders of the Hutt cartel, Black Sun and the others: “I’m coming for you. You are next.”

“You’re not a warlord anymore!” Rey shouted at him. “Is this how the leader of the galactic Council, the commander-in-chief of a peacekeeping force, deals justice? This is not the way, Kylo. Stand down!”

_The cam droid will record this. The recording will find its way to the holonet and stay there for ever. Years from now, do you want our children to watch you decapitate a criminal live in front of the whole galaxy? Do you really want them to see this?_

She wasn’t even pregnant then. So this was a weird thing to think about at such a moment, a macabre thing perhaps, but somehow it turned out to be convincing because Kylo let the man go. Whether because of the arguments she spoke aloud or those she sent through the bond, she hardly knew. If it was due to the latter, perhaps he remembered what it did to him when he found out from the holonet, at Luke’s academy, that he was Darth Vader’s grandson.

Crimson Dawn’s leader was taken to prison, underwent a trial and was executed a few months later. The leaders of the other gangs perished in subsequent battles, some of them by Kylo’s blade, but that was different. A battle was fine. A public makeshift execution was not. Not in the new order they have built together with the galactic Alliance.

* * *

So now Ben is silent, perhaps weighing pros and cons. Telling his children about his past means they will find out about Tuanul, about Han Solo, about Crait, about Hux, about yellow eyes, about Starkiller that he didn’t make happen but didn’t stop from happening, either. It means his children will find out he had kidnapped and tortured their mother. Not telling them, on the other hand, means they will find out on their first kindergarten day from their new and too eager classmates who must have heard stories and, perhaps, have even watched recordings because not all parents are as vigilant as Rey and Ben. In this way, their children would find out the same way Ben found out about Vader – from other people rather than from their own parents. He can’t let that happen. But how can he bring himself to tell them?

She touches his arm and he turns to look at her.

“There are other stories too,” Rey says. “Some of which they know already. The stories of you being a great leader. Of you saving the Core from Palpatine’s fleet, and then saving the lives of millions of clones. You founding Nova, ending slavery, and bringing peace and prosperity to many remote corners of the galaxy. You defeating the gangs. We will tell them all these stories. Do not worry. If I know everything and I love you, why wouldn’t they?”

“I wish I didn’t have to burden them with something like that,” he utters.

Well, he is definitely not the first Skywalker who wishes that. Yet he wouldn’t be the man he is now without his flawed past. The mission he has been working tirelessly to fulfil has been shaped by the events of his own life and by his family legacy. The children are to learn soon what it means to be a Skywalker, too.

“I love you. Do not worry,” Rey repeats and puts her arms around him. His mouth finds hers and they kiss for long minutes, slowly and affectionately, the way you can only kiss someone you have known and loved for years. It’s been a long day, one of many long and difficult days which, in perspective, have become good memories. They have turned it around. They always do. They are fine, the galaxy is thriving, they’re going on holiday, and she can rest. Her nightmare was just that: a bad dream, an echo or a reflection of the shards that she, too, carries in her soul. It is like this: their love is made of many things, and pain is one of them. It binds them as strongly as the happiness they have created together.

Rey closes her eyes and marvels, as usual, at the impossible softness of Ben Solo’s lips.

* * *

She wakes up in the middle of the night at the same time as Ben. They look at each other in the darkness for a short moment.

_Do you feel it too?_

_Yes. Let’s go._

They get out of bed, put their clothes on and slip out of the bedroom to the corridor.

“It comes from the kids’ room,” Ben says, walking faster. “Perhaps an intruder – I can feel a presence –”

Not an intruder, Rey thinks, but she is too uncertain to say it aloud. It is merely a feeling in the Force – a strange intuition that she can’t quite pin down.

“I think they are fine,” she says.

He glances at her quickly as they come to a halt in front of the children’s bedroom’s door, throws it open with the Force and rushes in. Rey follows but hits her head against his back as he stops abruptly at the doorstep.

The room is dark, yet bathed in blueish light, with the balcony door ajar and the curtain moving in the wind. Rhys and Nolan are sitting on one of the beds, fully awake.

And beside the bed, in an armchair Ben brought from the Naboo lake house – the kids loved that armchair during their last stay in Varykino, so he took it for them – there’s a figure, slightly blurred but otherwise clearly visible, shining with blue light. The Princess, the Senator, the Resistance General, the mother, the mentor they lost more than eight years ago when Espirion exploded in space. She is whispering to her grandchildren who listen attentively and whisper back to her.

As Rey wonders what stories she is telling them, Leia raises her eyes and smiles.

“Ben,” she speaks. “Rey. It took me a while to find the way. But I see,” she gestures to the kids, “that you haven’t wasted your time.”

For a few seconds, Ben remains completely still, staring at his mother’s ghost. Then he moves as swiftly as an arrow towards the armchair and crushes her in his embrace.

From above his shoulder, Leia winks to Rey, as if she wanted to say, in case you were wondering whether you can embrace a Force ghost, well yes, you can.

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realise nobody will believe me, but I swear I planned Ben’s disease as a major plot element for the epilogue before you-know-what hit the world…
> 
> Well, this time it’s the end for good. I hope you enjoyed this final instalment - I certainly did. Any fans of the future Supreme Leader Rhys Ren here? Did you expect Leia to return? 
> 
> Let me know what you think, thank you for all your amazing comments so far, and remember: no one’s ever really gone.

**Author's Note:**

> If you feel like trying a different pairing but equally strong feels, have a look at my other stories, featuring Kylo/OFC relationships: [Enough to Hope](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17384009/chapters/40912382) and its sequel [Lost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19127251/chapters/45454660), and a separate story [The Fever](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18147002/chapters/42910568). All three complete now!


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